The Remains Of Lawrence
by SALJStella
Summary: When Jigsaw saves Lawrence from the bathroom, a different person survives. And if there's any part of humanity left of him, like worry over his family and for Adam, sure Jigsaw can squeeze it out of him. AdamLawrence, Saw 3D complement
1. Prologue: Wakeup Call

**A/N: My darlings ChainShippers, let me take you back to the day that's now almost a year ago. On October 31****st****, me and Merel had our Billy-makeup on, we went to see Saw 3D, and of course, like any true Saw fan who was disappointed in the shameless rape of Lawrence's character, we went home from the theatre dissolved in tears. (Or, Merel cried, I threw tantrums at everything that moved. And didn't move.) And then, when I'd calmed down a little, I started planning this fic, and that night, I wrote this short little prologue. Because if there's any time when fanfiction isn't only fun, but downright **_**necessary, **_**it's after seeing that movie. Since if the real writers can't provide us with a proper ending to the franchise, we're going to have to do it ourselves, won't we? ;)**

**Prologue: Wakeup Call**

It's weird how powerlessness could once be his biggest fear.

When you think about it. It was only seven hours ago that the worst thing that Lawrence could imagine was not being in control. The structure was so important. Tic tac toe. Dates and times in the calendar.

Seven hours isn't long. He can reattach five fingers in that time. Maybe it's the fact that the suffering he went through during those hours is bigger than what most people go through in a lifetime. Yeah. It's probably that.

Or it's the fact that his wife and his daughter are dying or already dead.

Lawrence wishes someone could just walk in and tell him what to do. He doesn't want to be in control, he just wants to get away from here. He doesn't even want to die, he just wants to sleep. He wants to stop being in pain. He wants to go back in time. He wants to go back to the bathroom and put his foot back into the chain. He wants to sleep. He wants to sleep.

The fluorescent lights are swimming in and out of his vision. A burning worm in his brain. He wonders if he turned off the lights in the bedroom before he left home this morning. Is Adam okay? Is Diana dead?

Lawrence wants to sleep. He dies right after that.

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A grip on his wrists. That's the devil dragging him to hell. Yeah, that's probably what's happening.

He didn't expect the ride to hell to feel like a concrete floor. But who is he to question the way he finally gets what he deserves.

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When he stops being dead, the angel of death is still standing above him, for some reason.

Lawrence thinks it's granted that he's not going to go to heaven, so he's not surprised at all that the angel looks absolutely horrifying. What does surprise him is that he's lying on a bed, the pain in his foot is still unbearable but not in the way you'd expect from the fires of hell. Because why would the circles of hell reserved for men who cheat on their wives and mess up their daughters' childhoods be any less painful than the others?

The devil is standing before him. He looks familiar in some way.

"Congratulations, doctor Gordon."

In a while, Lawrence will get his senses back in order. And then, he will feel absolutely disgusted with himself for making not the devil, but someone almost as evil and black right down to the soul, be satisfied with him. But right now, mostly out of reflex, he gets an odd sense of fulfillment.

"You are perhaps my most valuable asset."


	2. These Lonely Walls

A/N: WHOO! After three years on this damn site, I've gotten around to change my A/N-layout. EVERYONE HOORAY FOR ME! XD This chapter is pretty much just a short filler, bursting at the seams with Lawrence-angst. And even though this fic won't exactly be ChainShipping-centric (even though it will get a side-note, since if I write a fanfic without two hot gay guys in it, my head explodes), don't worry… Adam will come onscreen soon. ;)

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**1: These Lonely Walls**

Lawrence's first girlfriend wants to paint his nails. He chuckles, blushes lightly and reaches his hand out, of course she can paint his nails, he isn't one to stereotype and knows that painted nails won't make him gay, plus, if she can have anything she wants, chances are better that he'll actually get to have _sex_ with her later.

_(when dealing with trauma patients, be gentle, and if they're violent, determined) _

Lawrence is on his first date with Alison. She's younger than him, and seems nervous, she can't even look at him but fidgets with the edge of her glass while she's talking about her majors, and at first, Lawrence's OCD doesn't allow him to think about anything but the way her nails scrape against the rasped surface, it's like they're scraping against his very skull, but then he hears the things Alison is saying and realizes that she's actually pretty interesting, he actually wants to see her again after today. They might actually have something together, this early on.

_(give them a blanket, warmth is important)_

It's a couple of days after Diana's fifth birthday. Lawrence has read in the parenting books that it's common for children to get a little shut down right after festivities such as birthdays or Christmas, but Diana seems almost overly happy. She's been bouncing off the walls ever since she had her birthday party, and this particular morning, she wakes Lawrence up by jumping into his and Alison's bed singing some dreadful Britney Spears song. Lawrence is just happy to spend time with her, so he's gladly dragged out of bed, and right when he's started making pancakes and thinks that this is going to be a nice day, he notices that Diana's standing behind him crying silently. When he asks her what's the matter, she starts sobbing uncontrollably, and when Lawrence has calmed her down enough to at least get words out, Diana explains that she's sad because he wasn't home on her birthday.

_(but don't give them water, that's a common mistake, don't give them water until you're sure it's safe) _

Lawrence's mind is the north Atlantic, steaming with cold and darkness, and sharp ice blocks of memories, bumping into each other, not coherently, just giving him a headache.

Especially when they bump into his emotions. The smoldering buzz in his ankle, his disgust for himself. The bottomless pit in his chest, screaming with _where's Diana Alison dead now Adam bleeding is he dead did I kill him? _

Lawrence is only half aware of all this, though. He's still unconscious, if that's what you can call it. His eyes are closed, but his eyelids are twitching, his hands clutching irregularly at things that he's already lost. And this is the closest he'll get to sleep for months to come.

Lawrence thinks this is horrible enough. And he's sort of right, since at this point, he's suffered through a bigger hell than anyone deserves, let alone him, who's always had the best intentions but just didn't know how to show love to the ones who needed it.

But Lawrence doesn't know how bad it's going to get when he wakes up.

Shhh, let's be quiet. We're going to let him sleep.

Let Lawrence sleep, not knowing about the plans Jigsaw has for him. Or about how Amanda's already asking him if she can go and finish Adam where he's rotting away in the bathroom, since after all, he's already failed his test.

Right now, Lawrence can sleep, if you can call it that, not knowing that when you're at the bottom of everything, when the darkness presses against you from every angle until you're crushed under the weight, it can still always get worse.

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Lawrence groans and presses his palms against the sides of his head.

The ice blocks in the cold ocean were bad enough. When Lawrence reluctantly opens his eyes and wakes up from whatever state he was in - sleep isn't the right word for it - the ice blocks are splashed aside by a giant, red-hot circular saw, roaring in his ears and splitting his head wide open.

Lawrence moans and squints against the dirty, yellow light from the one bulb in the ceiling. Everything is sort of swimming around, but after blinking a few times, some things become clear to him.

The room is almost empty. There's the bed he's lying on. Yes, he's definitely lying on a bed. He can tell that his right foot is elevated, probably to decrease the risk of inflammation _(when dealing with amputees, keep the amputated body part chilled and the wounded body part in an upright position), _but he can't look at it right now. Just the thought that his foot isn't there anymore is enough to make his stomach turn.

There's a chair next to his bed. And in the corner, a medicine cabinet. Other than that, just dust. Grime on the walls. Something scurrying away from the light.

That, and…

_The saw. _

Lawrence groans again.

_Alison… Diana…_

Then he whines like a baby and puts his hands over his eyes.

_Adam. _

Lawrence whimpers, helplessly, not even aware, everything's still floating around and the saw is buzzing in his head, grinding through his bone.

_What good is your dignity when your brains are splashing over the floor? _

He has no idea why he thinks a sentence this weird. He won't remember it when he wakes up, and he'll fall into that state again soon. Something that's not sleep, just a little shard of death.

Lawrence isn't sure what's worse. That or this.

After all, this isn't awake, either. It's just a giant mush of consequences, guilt, unawareness, and a hollow pain in his ankle.

Even after Lawrence has taken his hands from his eyes, he keeps squeezing his eyes shut. Not because he's hoping to fall asleep, or because he hopes that he'll open his eyes and this will all turn out to have been a dream, but just because he doesn't want to see. He knows what's out there, on the other side of his eyelids. He knows it's horrible, and it's bad enough what's in his head.

The memories. His daughter's sobs. Adam's desperate cries. The knowledge that he could've done things differently.

_(when dealing with trauma patients, be sure to be warm and compassionate, your technical skills won't do much good with them) _

Lawrence's eyes are so tightly shut and his head so filled with ice blocks that he doesn't notice when the door opens and someone enters.

_(it's important to not remind them of their guilt in the situation)_

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I know my "ummmmmmberwunnnnnnn"-bit was used in my fic Never Enough (ah, memories…) but what the hell… Angst is angst. Anyway, review and receive my eternal love! ^^


	3. Only The Devil Can Help You Out

A/N: WHEW. So, apparently I'm going on with this baby. And here's a chapter that in my opinion… Pretty much sucks, but I don't want to be one of those whiny writers that put that in their ANs and waits for reviews saying "nooo, it was awesome!" So thank God I didn't write that in my AN, huh? XD

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**2: Only The Devil Can Help You Out**

Lawrence doesn't know how long the man stands by the corner of the room before he notices. And when he does notice, he's still not sure how or why he does. Suddenly, his eyes are just fixed on a bony, slightly hunched figure that's just barely in the range of the yellow lamp in the ceiling. He's floating in and out of himself, multiplying and then becoming one person again. Lawrence doesn't know. He's confused. And thirsty.

"Hello, doctor Gordon."

Then he steps forward. He's wearing a black cloak, the red lining sort of blurring but still giving Lawrence a headache, and he knows that the man standing in front of him is the devil he saw earlier. It might be the only thing Lawrence actually knows right now.

"I saw that you'd cauterized your wound before I found you," the devil says. "I was impressed, though I expected nothing less of you. But as I'm sure you understand, I had to think of a more permanent solution."

Before Lawrence manages to ask what he means, the devil takes out something he'd kept hidden in the sleeves of his cloak; four broad leather belts. That's probably just as well. Lawrence wouldn't be able to verbalize a question, anyway.

Lawrence's arms and legs get strapped to the metal bars on the edge of the bed, without his objection. When the devil takes out a gag, he even opens his mouth to it. Because he knows that whatever happens to him from now on, he deserves it, and he welcomes it. Nothing is too horrible.

He just wants his family to be okay. Adam to be okay. But he's not sure how to say that. The words don't really work with him.

The devil picks something up from the floor. His main priority doesn't seem to be to show it to Lawrence, but he spots it anyway. Even though he's rarely worked with them, Lawrence knows a prosthetic foot when he sees them.

He says something. Apparently. The devil looks up. Eyes cold and blue.

"'No?' You're going to need this, doctor."

Lawrence whines. His face is wet, could be sweat, or tears, probably both.

He doesn't want that foot. He does welcome anything as a punishment, but he doesn't want a prosthetic foot from the devil. He'd prefer it if the devil cut him, hit him with something, poured acid on him, over this.

He'd rather take a punishment than this imitation of kindness.

"Please…" Lawrence whimpers. Dignity

_(no good when your brains are splashing over the floor)_

is lost on him.

The devil lowers the foot and looks at him. Like he's trying to be patient with someone who clearly is a complete idiot.

"For reasons you don't know yet, I need to you to be able to walk. I assure you that these reasons will be clear to you within the near future, but right now, I need to put this on."

Lawrence shakes his head violently, mostly out of reflex, even though it feels like his brain is rolling between the walls of his skull as he does so, making a faint, slimy sound. The surgical journal in his head quivers at the mere idea of the devil putting on a prosthetic already, and the devil seems to respect his opinion, _(because he knows you're two of a kind) _because he takes the gag out of Lawrence's mouth to listen to what he has to say.

"The amputee's wound has to be benign before you try on any kind of prosthetic," he rasps out. His voice sounds like it hasn't been used in years. "If you try it on while there is still a chance of infection, the prosthetic will become a colony of bacteria and cause the skin to come loose, secondary to… Oh _god…"_

The devil actually seems to hesitate at this. Lawrence is delusional and panicking and _so fucking thirsty, _but he gets the same perverse thrill of joy he used to get when he was a kid and his father gave him a hug. _He listens to me._

"How long do you suggest I wait with putting this on?" the devil asks, with polite curiosity, and Lawrence's jaws snap a few times, scrambling through the surgical dictionary, its pages are bloody and torn but he needs them, more than ever.

"Until… Until the wound is…" a dry sob, "healed and… _Benign… _Which might take… A week or more._"_

The devil stares at him for another few seconds, before he finally puts the foot back down and unstraps the belts around his arms and legs. Good. That's a start. It means everything will be better from here.

Lawrence tries to maintain this deranged optimism as the devil walks over to the chair next to his bed and sits down with a slight grimace. But he has a feeling that when his eyes get fixed in those pale ones again and the devil opens his mouth, he's going to say things that make it anything but better.

"Do you remember who I am, doctor Gordon?"

Lawrence opens his mouth again, searches his mind. The dark splashes of memories weren't very helpful when he was alone in this room, either, and now that he actually needs information, they're even more vague. He must be quiet for a while, because the devil smiles a bitter, closed-mouthed smile, the first real facial expression he's made since he walked in.

"I'm not surprised. If I recall correctly, you didn't look me in the eye once when I was your patient."

Lawrence just groans and puts a hand on his forehead. He can't really take a mind game right now. He can't even pretend to be sorry because he doesn't remember that the devil was once his patient.

"What's your name?" he says. His voice doesn't sound like his own. "Or, if the devil has a name. Were you always? Did you have a name before you became the devil?"

The devil's smile grows wider. Like it's a compliment.

"John Kramer. You failed to find a treatment for my cancer back in 2002."

Lawrence's groan turns into a whine and he presses his other palm against the side of his head.

"I don't remember… I don't..."

Then it comes back to him. A brief flash, the dark splashing gives him a glimpse of that face, but not from years ago, but mere hours.

_They look different in real life. They don't move._

Lawrence opens eyes he doesn't remember closing.

"You were on the floor. On the bathroom floor. You were dead."

The last sentence sounds even more pathetic than the previous, even he hears that. John Kramer smiles again.

"Surely a doctor should be able to see the difference between a dead body and one injected with a heavy dose of morphine."

Lawrence releases a stuttering breath, his hands maintaining on his head in awkward poses.

_And just imagine, if you'd spent more time being Lawrence instead of doctor Gordon, you might've been able to remember his face when you saw it in the bathroom._

That thought makes Lawrence bring his hands to his face. The devil won't see his features fall apart in gut-wrenching shame.

When he drops his hands again, Lawrence has a feeling John Kramer knew exactly what kind of pain he was trying to cover with them. His expression is a bit too neutral.

"Doctor," he says calmly, "I trust you have some questions for me, and believe me when I say I will answer every one of them. For example… What's happened to your family."

Despite the fact that Lawrence, since he woke up, has had an ache in that soft spot right beneath the ribs where all the anxious nerves are gathered up in a bundle, and actually thought that there was no feeling in the world that was worse than the worry he felt for Diana and Alison, he feels that bundle tangle up further at these words. He can't even bring himself to answer.

"They're safe and alive," John Kramer says, and Lawrence feels he could die right there right then from sheer relief, drops his head back against the sheets with a heavy sigh.

"And you want to know if the same goes for Adam," John Kramer goes on, snapping Lawrence out of his momentary bliss. "He's alive, but weak. We will discuss him further when you're ready."

The knot tightens again. Of course there had to be a downside.

"And you want to know who I am," John Kramer goes on.

Lawrence isn't sure if he's waiting for confirmation from him, but he wants to deliver it anyway. Delusional or not, he doesn't want to be the one who doesn't have any answers. That's not him.

"I know who you are," he says. "You're the Jigsaw killer."

Jigsaw smirks, completely without the bitter undertone this time.

"I take that you know me by that name. While you're here, though, I prefer 'John.'"

Later on, Lawrence will reflect on the words _while you're here. _But he doesn't now.

"You also want to know…" Jigsaw goes on, his eyes not leaving Lawrence's face for a second, "why I've kept you here."

Lawrence doesn't answer to that. Not even he thinks there's a point commenting it.

After all, he knows, somehow, that a world of hopelessness begins here.

"I meant what I said about you being my most valuable asset," Jigsaw says. "Your medical skills have done nothing but harm to you in your previous life. Torn apart your family, numbed you, made you a shell of a human being. I'm giving you a choice. You can start a new life… Here and now… Where your hands and your abilities will heal people, inside out."

Lawrence starts shaking his head before Jigsaw is even halfway through his monologue.

"Just let me go. I'm not joining you, no way in hell."

Jigsaw just looks at him, with something that looks like amusement, and even though Lawrence knows that he has some kind of argument that will make it impossible for him to say no, he keeps talking. Because he wants to know that he did what he could. Because he can't stand the thought that he's going to have to join the devil, in this dirty concrete room that he knows now is his hell.

"How the fuck can you even _ask?" _he sputters out. "What did you _think _I was going to say? You put me through hell, and my family… Why the _fuck _would I…"

He feels blood pulsing in his ears, the anger a bit too much for him when he's this weak, and Jigsaw still looks at him like a kid trying to talk him out of going to bed with sensible arguments.

"As I said," Jigsaw then says. "I'm giving you a choice. Your medical skills are needed here, but if you want to go back home, you can. Without your family."

The words don't even land in Lawrence. They don't make any sense to him.

"They are safe right now," Jigsaw says, softer now. "But if you refuse my offer, they will both die a very gruesome death."

Lawrence didn't even know that he was crying again.

"Fuck you. Fuck you."

That smile again. Lawrence can't stand this. He wants to go back home. He wants everything to be the way it used to. When everything was in order. He doesn't like this.

"I cut off my goddamn _foot," _Lawrence says, menacing, growling, but begging on his knees. "I did what you wanted me to, I… _I want to go back home now! _I fucking…"

Lawrence hasn't cried in twelve years before tonight. But he's crying like a baby right now. Because he doesn't know what to do. Because he knows exactly what he has to.

Jigsaw knows, too. The only reason he doesn't say it out loud is that he wants to hear Lawrence say it, and knows that he's not ready for that yet.

"I will give you time to think about it," he says, and cringes when he stands up again.

Lawrence sees his back moving away, and then the door closing behind him. He wants to throw something at him. Kill him. Go back home, wants to go back home. '

But as it is, all he has is these goddamn tears. And the knowledge that's slowly sinking in.

_I did what he wanted me to. I did it. I fucking did it._

He shouldn't be this surprised. The world isn't fair. It only makes sense that the injustice in hell would be ten times more gruesome, hollow, pointless, and ultimately lonely.


	4. Let Them Go, I'll Stay

A/N: Okay, brace yourself for this, people: This is the first chapter of this fanfic that's NOT just a filler! It's actually content, but… You Adam-lovers won't be happy, just so you know. But those of you who read my stuff know that they usually get worse before they get better. ;) Read it and weep!

**3: Let Them Go, I'll Stay**

Lawrence is still waiting for the day when he will have his perfect operation.

Yes, that's what he's thinking about, even now. It feels like he will never perform surgery again, because that's what he did in another life, with sterilized scalpels and operating rooms that were so clean that they made even blood spatter and human body parts spread across the floor look tidy. Lawrence has made his entire reputation on learning surgical manuals word by word, and performing the operations the same way. He wouldn't be able to do one right now, not without reading a manual first. He doesn't have surgery in his backbone, he doesn't work on reflex, like all the best surgeons do, because trusting his backbone would be letting go of his control and act on feeling, and that's something he'll never do.

Lawrence somehow managed to be the best without doing anything on his own. Just trusting instructions. Taking these little pieces of wisdom from other people and formed them into something with a tailor-made white coat and neatly combed hair. It's brought him exactly where he wanted to be. But it kept him from that one perfect operation.

The perfect operation was what Lawrence longed for when he'd just graduated from med school. That was a life even further in the past, Lawrence can barely remember it, but he remembers that it was simple. He was young, he wanted to do good, and he wanted to be happy, and when he had a perfect operation, he would feel it in his heart. He wasn't sure what he would feel, but that one perfect operation would be the very key to his existence, and he would feel complete.

Or something like that.

Lawrence doesn't remember it. He barely remembers anything other than this.

He's not sure how long he lies there before Jigsaw comes back in. When he does, it's by wheelchair, pushed by a dark-haired woman. She's younger than Lawrence, and if he saw her outside of here, he would find her pretty, but in here, there's a deadness in her eyes and her face is painted by the dirt-yellow light of the bulb, makes her look like a skull, and he hates her so intently that it actually brushes past the thick, cold blanket of numbness that lies on top of everything else.

Lawrence hasn't longed for that perfect operation in years. Not since he realized that he wouldn't feel it in his heart anymore, he'd feel it in his fingertips, the only parts of himself he needs for work and thus the only things that mattered. But he longs for it again now.

Now that he actually feels that need to save people again. Now that the people he needs to save are people he loves.

"Hello, doctor Gordon," Jigsaw says, his hands lying still in his lap, cold eyes observing. "How are you feeling?"

Lawrence sees the woman's red lips play in a smirk at this. _Yeah, because no matter how shitty you're feeling now, you'll feel even worse in a bit. _

"Before I agree to anything," Lawrence says, ignoring the question, "I need proof that my family is safe. Not just your word. I don't trust it worth shit anyway."

He didn't know he was sane enough to put together coherent sentences yet. But it's good that he is, because he has a feeling he's going to need it now. Jigsaw looks back at him, looking like he would nod if it hadn't caused him so much pain.

"That's a valid demand," he says solemnly. "Amanda, get him the cell phone."

Amanda makes a face, pursed lips and rolling eyes, like she doesn't get why she has to waitress on this stupid old bastard. But she doesn't talk back, simply walks out of the room. Lawrence and Jigsaw are alone, and Lawrence is ashamed with himself when he feels the reflex of his old politeness to start a conversation.

"I understand that you don't trust me right now," Jigsaw suddenly says. "But if we're going to work together, you should know that no matter what you think of me, I never lie. That is a fact."

Lawrence feels his jaw clenching. He hasn't punched anyone in thirty years, but fuck if he wouldn't if he could now.

"You forced me to cut my foot off," he settles for saying.

Jigsaw's gaze doesn't falter for a second.

"You had a…"

"_I never had a choice!" _Lawrence roars, flinching in his rage, causing a long flame of pain to lick up his right leg and force him to stay calm.

Jigsaw just keeps looking at him. Lawrence gets an uneasy feeling that he's observing everything he does, locking it away in a memory bank to decide if he's going to be useful later on, and Lawrence doesn't even want to know what he's supposed to be useful for.

The next second, Amanda comes back in, a bored expression on her face as she hands Lawrence a cell phone. He gets slightly nauseous

_(please come home daddy) _

when he remembers where he's seen it before.

"I've called her and given her the number," Amanda says to Jigsaw. "She'll call him soon. And if you," she goes on and turns to Lawrence, "as much as fucking _breathes _about where you are or try to get them to call the cops, I'll scalp your wife on that pretty blond hair."

"Amanda," John says, with a warning note that's not enough to get Amanda to stop looking at Lawrence like she wants an excuse to take his right foot and twist it. "Doctor Gordon still doesn't know where he is. And if he's somehow managed to figure it out, I trust he can figure out the consequences himself."

Amanda keeps glaring at Lawrence as he takes the phone, and then goes to stand behind Jigsaw. It doesn't take long before the cell starts buzzing in Lawrence's lap, but he still startles, his nerves worn thin and not set up for any of this. It takes him a couple of seconds before he can bring himself to answer.

When he does, he wishes he hadn't.

He'd do whatever the hell Jigsaw asked him to if he just didn't have to hear Alison's voice like this.

"Hello?"

"L-Larry?"

Lawrence closes his eyes.

"Ali…"

Nothing else to say. Just listening to her breathing, oh, how it'd annoy him when he had to sleep next to her but is the most beautiful sound he's ever heard now.

"Are… Are you okay? They've left you alone?"

"Yeah, we're fine," Alison answers, a jittery impression of calm. "The po-police is investigating the apartment and they're trying to trace our past calls…"

"No!" Lawrence blurts out, clutching tighter to the phone. "Don't. Tell them to stop that, okay? If they find out where you've been calling, we… We're going to be in a lot of trouble. But I'm fine, I'm okay, I…"

He puts two fingertips on his eyelids. _Keep it together. God's sake. _

"I'm fine, Alison," he concludes. "As long as you two are fine, I'm fine. And I'll see you soon again, I promise."

Alison draws in a shaky breath. They might not love each other anymore, but she knows him better than anyone, and she knows when he's lying. But she does what she did in the past life, when he came home late, hair ruffled and guilt in his eyes that clearly showed that he'd done something he shouldn't have. She pretends not to notice, because that's what makes him happy.

"Okay," she says. "Larry, I… I love you, okay?"

Lawrence nods. It hurts that he has to say he's okay, still has to lie to her, even after going through something that could've brought them back together.

"I love you, too. Is… Is Diana there?"

Alison sniffles. He can see in his head how she rolls her lips together.

"Yeah, she is. Hang on…"

A brief pause. And then, when Diana's crackled voice speaks up in his ear, Lawrence has to work up every ounce of self-control he's ever had to keep from caving in.

"Daddy?"

Lawrence has to swallow a few times. He's not sure if he's about to either cry or vomit.

"Diana, baby…" he clutches to the phone with both hands, as if that's going to keep her with him. "How are you feeling? Are you okay?"

"Daddy, the police… They say they can't find you, they say…" Diana sobs in a way he hasn't heard before, such raw, open despair. "They say I might have to… I might have to stop ho-hoping…"

Lawrence presses the back of his hand against his lips. All those years he could've done things differently.

"Don't listen to them," he says when he's gathered the pieces of his voice together. "I'm right here, baby, and I'm fine. The police just can't find me because they're stupid, right?"

Diana's crying seems to still a little. Lawrence tries not to look at Jigsaw and Amanda, since he has a feeling his reaction is exactly the one they were hoping for.

"I'll be back home before you know it," Lawrence says. "I'll be back home, with you and mommy, and everything will be fine. Okay? But are you sure you're okay? No… No scary men have come around to mess with you and mommy?"

Diana sucks in a stuttering breath.

"No. No, we're okay, but… Daddy… I'm scared… And I want you to… _T-to come back home," _terrified whispers, like she's afraid he won't allow her to say it, like she's supposed to be strong now.

And Lawrence knows at that moment that he's going to have to work with the people that make her sound like that.

"I'll be home soon, Diana," he says, the lie tasting as bitter as always. It's not the same as lying to Alison. "I'll be back home, and until then, you'll take good care of mommy, right?"

Diana inhales a few hiccuppy sobs.

"Yeah, I will."

Lawrence nods.

"Good. I'll see you soon, baby. I love you."

"I love you, too, daddy."

Lawrence nods to himself again. Then he hangs up. It feels even worse than he thought it would.

The room is silent as Lawrence wipes away warm tear tracks over his face, takes a few deep breaths to calm down, like he wants to pretend that Jigsaw and Amanda just entered the room and if he manages to stop crying right now, they'll never find out that he did at all. Then he looks at them. Jigsaw has the same blank face as usual, and Amanda looks grimly, evilly amused. Lawrence just looks back and forth between them, the burning sadness dying out and replaced with a cold, black hopelessness.

They stare at each other for a while. Both Jigsaw and Amanda look like they expect him to have an answer for them by now, but when Lawrence doesn't say anything, Amanda scoffs.

"You'd think that if you were the super-daddy you pretended to be in the bathroom, you'd be eager to help out by now," she says venomously, but is silenced just by Jigsaw turning his head slightly to the side, not even enough to look directly at her.

There's a brief moment of tension between them. Then Jigsaw lifts his hand in a feeble gesture that Amanda seems to understand, because she walks straight up to the edges of Lawrence's bed and picks up the belts that Jigsaw used to strap Lawrence down before. He didn't realize that they'd been there since then, like Jigsaw knew that there'd be another time in the near future when Lawrence would try to break free.

Lawrence doesn't protest. He barely notices that Amanda's moving. His tunnel vision doesn't leave much room for anything but the film of black and red dots that seems to cover his eyes.

Diana's voice. It's still ringing in his head.

His body isn't healed enough to be torn up inside like this.

"What about Adam?" he rasps out when Amanda's secured one of his hands. "Is he still alive? Have you done anything to him?"

If that black and red film hadn't been there, Lawrence would've seen that Jigsaw doesn't answer until he's sure that both Lawrence's hands are strapped down.

"Adam failed his test," Jigsaw says, with the slightest hint of nervousness that's probably the reason why he asked Amanda to tie Lawrence up. "You proved yourself worthy of the life you've been given, and he did not. The rules clearly stated that if either of you failed your test, we'd leave you in the bathroom to…"

"_No!" _

Lawrence yanks on the belts so hard that his bed jumps, the metal frame rattles. Jigsaw doesn't go on, because there's no point, Lawrence is twice as miserable now as he would be if he'd said exactly what would happen to Adam after being in that bathroom for a longer period of time.

How he'd slip further and further into insanity. How it'd start off mildly, just some brief hallucinations and maybe some incoherent babbling to himself, before the hallucinations started talking to him. Telling Adam again and again how useless he was, how he'd done shit with his life and he was bound to die like this, until Adam's brain was so broken that what they said made perfect sense, and that would be when he banged his forehead against the edge of the bathtub in there, again and again, until the blood splattered out and a cracking sound echoed between the dirty tiles.

"_Please!" _Lawrence whines, thrashing in his bed, feels the pain in his leg and doesn't care one fucking bit. "He's learned his lesson, you have to go back for him, you have to go back for him and if you leave him in there I'll tear _both your fucking heads off!" _

His tone alternates between desperately begging and furiously roaring, but none of that has any affect on Jigsaw. Amanda looks slightly distraught, but Lawrence doesn't care about her. He needs Jigsaw to listen, he needs something to go right with these past god-awful days, needs someone to come out of it clean and whole.

But he doesn't get his way. Lawrence Gordon's control span has officially run out.

"Please!" he keeps yelling, even as Jigsaw has gestured at Amanda again and she's started wheeling him out the room. "I'll do anything! Get him out of there! Please don't leave him there, please don't, _please don't…" _

He'll do anything. Anything. Now that he can't do anything anymore.

He keeps yelling, even after the door slams shut behind them, and when his voice has left him, there are just gurgling, hollow sobs, nothing that can be fixed, he broke everything and it's too late, too late, too late, too late.

Later tonight, when Lawrence has run out of tears, he will turn his face to the ceiling, keeping his eyes wide open even as he feels exhaustion creeping through his nerves. Tonight, and all the nights that follow, he won't want to sleep, and tonight is the first night his nightmares will be filled with the screams of someone he never managed to save.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Adam can't tell for sure if it's night, but it feels that way. He's getting tired in a way that not even his constant, mind-numbing panic can alter, and a couple of hours ago, something started scurrying around in the darkness. It was far away from him then, but he's pretty sure it's getting closer with every time he closes his eyes. He tries to keep them open. But then he realizes that the scurrying might be rats, and that means he can grab them and maybe get something to eat.

That seems the most believable. They're probably not imaginary, he doesn't think he's managed to go insane in just a couple of hours.

After a while, he stops trying to figure it out, but just lets his eyes fall shut. Whatever's going to get him when he falls asleep, and he's sure it's something, might as well come for him already. Lawrence isn't going to come back. He's already dead.

For some reason, that thought is ten times more depressing than something in the darkness eating him as soon as he closes his eyes.

It could be hours, or just minutes, before Adam sees a sliver of light through his closed eyelids.

It's Lawrence, he's sure of that. Who else would it be? No one else has cared about him other than Lawrence, and now he's come back for Adam. It's going to be okay now.

Even Adam's broken features can almost smile at this thought. Almost.

_It's going to be okay now. _

He dares to open his eyes. His head has fallen forward, his chin against his chest, so he doesn't see much, except for his own body in the light from the door. Even his hands look traumatized.

"Adam?"

A whisper. That's not Lawrence's voice.

"Adam?"

Adam straightens his neck, trying to get a look at whoever's talking, but the sight of his face makes the girl next to him gasp, and then pull his head into a tight hug. Adam's too tired to resist. He could fall asleep right here, even though he feels very clearly that this is an embrace he'd rather not be in if he'd been actually been conscious.

"I'm going to help you."

Good, Adam thinks. I want to get out of here. Get me out of here.

"I'm going to set you free."

He hears a weird, flapping sound. Then he feels it on his face.

Adam isn't sure what it is. It's sticky, soft, but tight on his face and he knows that he doesn't want it there, tries to get words out with that something covering his mouth, clawing desperately, but it's still there, he can't get it off, needs air, _fucking air! _

Somewhere behind it all, he hears whoever's doing this to him crying. He gets that she probably doesn't want to do this, and he's not sure what "this" is, but he doesn't like it. Everything's fading out now, and even though Adam's been in darkness for the past couple of hours and the majority of his life before then, it's different now.

He's dying. For real this time.

Adam tries to scream, but there's still nothing coming out. All there is is a burning ache in his lungs, a world that's fading into blackness, in his mind, a scream for Lawrence, and that's it, that's it.

And after another couple of seconds, that, too, fades away, and all that's left is nothing.


	5. Not Any Goddamn Point

A/N: WHOO, another chapter! I managed to scare the hell out of some of you with that last chapter, didn't I? ;) Trust me, it killed me, since Adam is the love of my life (looking for a non-fictional guy? Pfff.) but it had to be done. Now, since it can only get better from there, here's an… _Almost _as depressing chapter. But not quite! Progress, right?

xxxxxxxxxxxx

**4: Not Any Goddamn Point**

Lawrence doesn't really remember waking up in the bathroom. It's all a bit of a blur.

He remembers that he was sweating, despite the raw cold. Hands slipping on the tiles, moist and sticky with something he didn't know what it was and didn't want to know. The control that he still maintained an illusion of, but even then he knew, somehow, that it was long gone.

He just remembers the shrill little voice, far away in the dark, calling for him.

Or, Adam wasn't really calling for him. He didn't know he did, at least. Lawrence was the only thing he had right then. And Lawrence didn't think that he needed Adam the same way, but that's exactly how it was. Adam was the only thing he had. The one thing keeping him sane, but in the end, that wasn't enough.

Lawrence knows now that Adam is the first real friend he'd ever had. Which doesn't exactly make it easier to know that he was the one who'd killed him.

_(it's important not to remind them of their guilt in the situation) _

Adam's was the last face Lawrence saw before he went insane. It's been on his mind since then, and as Lawrence lies on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, he thinks that Adam's face will also be the last one he sees before he goes insane again.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Jigsaw comes back later. Lawrence has no way of knowing how long has passed, if it's morning now or if it was night if he came in, he doesn't have a clock or any windows, and no matter what, it'd feel like forever, with his only company being his ghosts.

Without clocks or windows, it will be black, cold night from now on.

"How are you feeling, doctor?"

Lawrence can't look at him.

"Amanda's going to bring you some breakfast soon. You must be hungry."

Eyes locked on the same place in the ceiling. Even though things have probably stopped spinning by now.

"Your apathy should be enough of an answer in this question, but I still feel inclined to ask. Have you thought about my offer?"

Eyes locked on the same spot on the ceiling. Lawrence can look away. He's not disoriented anymore.

But what would be the fucking point?

Why would he look around the room when he's just going to see Adam in the corners, side soaked in blood, same pale, young face that kept him human for those hours but completely different, twisted grin, eyes glistening vindictively?

Why would he go back to healing when everything he does turns out wrong anyway?

Lawrence doesn't look at him. His eyes are still locked on the ceiling when he answers.

"I'll do whatever you want."

Jigsaw doesn't answer right away. When he does, he sounds unprepared. Like he had an answer for what he thought Lawrence would say, but Lawrence didn't say what he expected him to.

"As soon as you're on your feet again, we'll find a test for you. Something that requires your surgical skill…"

"It doesn't have to be surgery," Lawrence says, eyes still on that spot. "I'll do the things you have that Amanda girl for, too. I'll do anything. I don't care. As long as my family's safe."

And get Adam out of there. Get Adam out of there, and I'll do anything.

He hears a smirk in Jigsaw's voice when he answers, a bitter, spiky satisfaction. That should make him feel filthy to the core.

But it doesn't. Just nothing.

"I just need you for surgery for now. If I can think of more areas of usage for you, I'll let you know."

"Whatever you need." Just get Adam out of there. Get him out of there, and I'll do anything. "Just let me know. I can do a lot of things, I guess you know that."

"I'll keep that in mind, doctor. Right now, we will focus on getting you rehabilitated."

Lawrence nods.

_Get Adam out of there. I won't do anything unless you get him out of there. _

"What do you suggest should be the first step in physical therapy? What kind of equipment do you need?"

_(when dealing with amputees) _

"I'm going to need a wheelchair at first…" _(be sure to) _"and then crutches, and then a cane. And-and… A big rubber band and…"

It sort of dies there. Lawrence's mind seems to be milk, milk he used to boil when he was a kid and wanted to make hot chocolate, with the way it could boil up in a matter of seconds and become twice as much as it was when it was cold, and then the second he took it off the hotplate, the milk sank down and became little again, that's how you knew it was finished, even if mommy preferred it when he didn't make it boil, because that made the milk burn into the bottom of the pot and it could overflow and scold his hands.

The milk always started boiling too much. Lawrence felt so bad afterwards.

Now, the milk is coming back. Lawrence's mind was stilled down for a while, with the apathy since Jigsaw was last there, it had almost gotten cold, but in the middle of his sentence, it boiled up again, swelling, spattering with images of Adam and Diana's screaming, that burning hot stuff that could burn his skin until it fell off.

Lawrence has to sit with his hands over his eyes for a couple of minutes until the milk sinks back down, Jigsaw waits patiently. When everything's fallen back into place and he can breathe again, Lawrence slowly clasps his hands on top of the blanket.

"…And a set of bandages for the… Wound, and some kind of padding for the stump when we put the prosthetic on," he goes on, like there was no break. "Like linen, or something."

Jigsaw is quiet for a minute. For no apparent reason other than to relish in the fact that Lawrence has accepted that he's going to stay here.

"Of course, doctor," he says.

He stays on his chair for a while, probably perfectly aware of how much of Lawrence's soul he holds in his hand. Lawrence stares at that spot, not seeing him there but feeling the cold presence by his bedside, and feels like he used to as a teenager, pretending to watch TV as his father came into his room, sat on his bedside, didn't say anything, just stared, and that was enough to make him feel useless.

Just like dad, Jigsaw stands up when he feels he's had enough of his fear, walks out slowly.

Lawrence knows he should put some ultimatums. He knows he can technically say that he won't do a damn thing for them if they don't get Adam out of there. He knows he can say that Adam has learned his lesson, and if they let him out of there, he would never take anything for granted, ever again. Even say that if they let him out, Adam could help them, he could take pictures for them, do research, he's good at that, and he'll do anything if they just let him live.

Or he should at least ask them to make it quick. Be merciful.

Just go in there and give him a gun. At least don't make him die rotting away in the darkness.

Lawrence doesn't say any of those things. Stays quiet as the door closes again.

None of that is important. Nothing matters anymore.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Engine grease slick on Hoffman's hands as he tightens the bolts on the Venus flytrap, fingers slipping and the handle of the wrench digging deep into his hand.

He doesn't know whom this particular trap is for. He rarely asks, and with John being off working down that Gordon guy, Amanda's the only one around who has a clue of what's going on with everything, and Hoffman knows it's childish, but he refuses to ask her about anything. The idea of her _knowing _that she knows more than him makes him uneasy.

Hoffman startles when he hears the door behind him open. He doesn't turn around; he knows whom it is. This door is too heavy for John to open, and if it were the cops, he'd already be dead.

"Get out here," Amanda says unceremoniously as she sticks her head in the room. "He wants to talk to us."

"About Gordon?" Hoffman asks, without putting the wrench down.

"How much else is there to talk about?" Amanda snarled. "And stop the fucking tweaking, you know what happens."

Hoffman smirks to himself. He doesn't have any work left to do on this trap, and he's much more interested in what John has to say anyway, but he still fiddles around with the wrench until she sighs theatrically and closes the door again.

John is annoyed enough with them for the way they act with each other when he's around. He'd probably bite their heads off he knew what they're like when they're alone.

Hoffman walks out the room a couple of seconds later, wiping grease from his fingers with a rag. Amanda's already there, of course, leaning against the edge of the table, and John's sitting in his wheelchair like it's a throne. He parked it right next to his hospital bed, like he's trying to pretend that he doesn't need it, that he can sit upright without any problem at all.

He can still walk, that's good. But Hoffman knows that that won't last for long, and after that, it'll only be a matter of time until he's going to have to stay in his bed all day, and at that point, there won't be much to do but wait.

He tries not to think about it. He tries not to think about a lot of things. It works sometimes.

The silence in the room is almost deafening. Amanda seems to work hard on seeming relaxed, but Hoffman knows that if John weren't here, she would jump from one foot to the other with excitement, just for the possibility that she might get to hurt someone, and that thought makes him want to kill her even more than usual.

"So," Hoffman says, when John seems to have almost forgotten that they're in the room. "You've gotten anything out of Gordon yet?"

John stays quiet for another couple of seconds. It's hard to read him when he can barely move, but it's obvious that he's trying to pick his words well.

"He's agreed to help as long as we can guarantee the safety of his family."

Hoffman feels Amanda's excitement turn to anger next to him, as quickly as if someone's flicked a switch. This is a big deal to her, with new people on the team, but he can't care less.

"That's…" Amanda says, keeping her tone somewhat gentle, "I mean, how do we know we can trust him?"

John glances at her.

"He knows what we can do to his family. He won't do anything as long as we've got a hold of them."

"Oh, come on, John," Amanda goes on, probably sounding pleading, but to Hoffman, she just sounds whiny. "He doesn't _want_ to help us, he must hate us for what we've put him through. If we let him out, first chance he'll get, he'll take his family and flee the country."

"With that foot, he won't pull any fucking Batman stunts anytime soon," Hoffman can't resist mumbling, and Amanda glares at him, but quiets whatever bitter retort she had when John speaks up again.

"He won't try anything. He's already distressed after realizing that Adam's about to die, he won't do anything to risk losing his family again."

Pause. Hoffman and Amanda wait.

"We'll keep him here. He won't get to see them. We'll show him proof that they're safe every so often, but he'll never get to see them. That'll be enough. At this point, he doesn't care about himself, as long as they're alive."

Hoffman nods. Fine with him. Gordon will probably be useful to John, and he won't be any trouble for Hoffman, won't try to do anything other than what he's told. If he's going to hate this nearly as much as he should, he'll probably sit in a corner and sulk most of the time.

"Detective, you'll be the one taking care of him during his rehabilitation," John goes on, giving Hoffman a deliberate look. "Any game set up between now and when he can walk again, Amanda will help me with. You both got it?"

Hoffman nods again, keeping his gaze as far away from Amanda and that _fucking _little smirk he knows she's working as he feels bitterness sinking in like a stone in his chest.

Heavy lifting and babysitting old doctors. Apparently _that's_ what he gave his life to.

"Fine," he mutters. John hears the resentment in his voice, no doubt about it, but he ignores it.

"You can start with trying to get him to eat something," he goes on, turning to Hoffman again. "He hasn't gotten much down since we got him here. But it's vital for his recovery that he gets some nourishments, so…"

Hoffman nods impatiently even before John has finished the sentence.

"I got it," he says, trying to sound neutral, but he never interrupts John, of course both Amanda and him notice that he wants to pick them both up on straight arms and jam their heads into a chipper, both he doesn't care, let them gawk their fucking eyes out as he walks out the room and into the kitchen on the other end of the hall.

He works so goddamn hard. It's not fair.

He makes an unnecessary amount of noise when he's looking for things in the kitchen. When he's found something that can almost pass for a reasonable breakfast, he walks through the hall to Gordon's room. His fingers are so stiff with poorly suppressed anger that he can barely get the keys out of his pocket, but he finally manages to unlock the door and step inside.

He's not surprised that Gordon doesn't seem to notice him. Whatever. Hoffman can make sure that he's unable to ignore him for long.

"Gordon," he says calmly. "John says you've got to eat. I brought you some breakfast."

Gordon's stare is blank, but not unfocused. He seems to be locked on a spot on the ceiling, right above the medicine cabinet. Hoffman sighs a strained exhale through his nose. He knows it's never good to be violent at the first provocation, but he'll be damned…

Instead of backhanding him, Hoffman places the things he got from the kitchen on Gordon's legs. He doesn't have a nightstand, so there aren't a lot of other options. An apple, two cold Hot Rolls and a bottle of water, neatly lined up, and Gordon still doesn't move. Hoffman takes three big strides over to the foot of his bed, so his head is almost right in front of the spot Gordon is staring at.

"Gordon," he repeats. "Look at me, or I'm going to take your foot and twist it."

Gordon doesn't respond at all. And still doesn't look at him. Hoffman doesn't twist it, but just places a rough hand on his foot, and that's enough to make Gordon startle, and Hoffman feels that familiar chill of delight when he sees his face twisting in pain. _Yeah, try ignoring me now, you little piece of shit. _

When Gordon opens his eyes again, he looks directly at Hoffman. Hoffman meets his stare with a small, almost polite, smirk, even though the direct insight in Gordon's misery almost makes him wish he'd look away again.

He knows that look in Gordon's eyes. He saw it in the mirror, right after she died. Knows the thought behind them, the same empty calling that doesn't stop for as long as you live.

_I could've done more. I could've saved him. _

Good thing they didn't have to kill his family. If he's this shaken up just over losing that Adam kid that he barely even knew, they wouldn't get him to do anything good if he lost them, too.

"Good, you're awake," Hoffman says, completely without humor. "Now you better pick up your fucking ears, because I'm only going to say this once. My name is Hoffman. I'm going to be the one babysitting you until you're back on your feet. Or foot. You better do whatever the fuck I tell you to do, because I can make your life a living hell. In fact, the only thing I'm not going to do is kill you. You can see that as a good or a bad thing, it's all the same to me."

He does see a small light die out in Gordon's eyes at this. It's almost scary. He didn't think he could look anymore dead than he already did.

"The only thing you need to remember to survive here," Hoffman finishes off, "is to obey orders. And now, I'm telling you to eat."

Gordon just keeps staring at him for a couple of seconds. Of course Hoffman can't look away, no matter how much he'd like to, so he meets his gaze until Gordon finally lifts his right hand, slowly picks up the apple and starts eating it, with the same blank stare as before.

"Good," Hoffman says and straightens up. "I'll be back in a bit, and then you better have eaten it all."

Then he walks outside, making sure to lock the door after him.

When he's back with Amanda and John, John tells him that he has to sleep in Gordon's room, to make sure he doesn't try to escape then. Hoffman doesn't really see how he can escape when he can't walk, but he doesn't talk back, of course. He wouldn't have minded sleeping in there, if he hadn't known just how soundly you slept when you felt like Gordon did right now.

He can sleep through almost anything. But not the sound of someone thrashing back and forth the exact same way he did a couple of years ago. These wounds that should've healed by now but are torn open by seeing someone going through the exact same thing.

True to Hoffman's suspicions, Lawrence wakes up from nightmares the whole night. It's only now that he actually hears Adam's screams in his head, and he's close to covering his ears with his hands, but he doesn't, he welcomes it, all of it. He wanted punishment, this is the worst kind of punishment he could ask for.

_Don't leave me! Lawrence! Lawrence!_

He'd still be alive if Lawrence hadn't left him there. Lawrence wants to pull the covers over his head to block out the sight of Adam on the floor, reaching for him, screaming until he doesn't have any voice left, but he doesn't. He deserves this. He deserves it because he was the one who killed him.

_(it's important not to think of your guilt in the situation) _

_(you killed him you useless miserable fuck, he'd still be alive if you hadn't been a selfish bastard) _


	6. Use Me, Abuse Me

A/N: CUE GLORIOUS RETURN! Missed me? XD This was a longer break than usual, and for that, I'm sorry. I'm even more sorry that I can't provide with anything more than a bit of a filler-chapter after keeping you waiting for three months. -.- I've been dealing with bitchy RL-stuff, Christmas, school, and other than that, in the words of Leigh Whannell: "Writing is a brutal mistress who can sometimes strap on her leathers and force you to kneel while she uses her spatula to… I have to go now."

**5: Use Me, Abuse Me**

A couple of days later, Hoffman brings Lawrence a wheelchair. At that point, Lawrence has gotten so restless that he's started heaving himself off the bed using the rail on the sides to work up some arm strength. When Hoffman enters the room and sees Lawrence in his feeble attempt of weight-lifting, he gives him a look that Lawrence isn't sure how to interpret.

Hoffman closes the door behind him. Lawrence doesn't stop heaving himself up and down. Hoffman hasn't audibly told him to stop, and Lawrence has found that lately, he doesn't really care what either of these sick fucks does to him.

"Knock it off," Hoffman says after a few seconds of following Lawrence's movements with his eyes.

Lawrence settles back down on the bed. Hoffman keeps observing him for a moment, like he's making sure that Lawrence is really obeying him and won't rebelliously start moving again, and then walks up to his bedside, pushing the wheelchair in front of him.

Lawrence doesn't ask about it. Hoffman and Amanda are different like that, he's learned that already. Amanda would wait for him to ask just so she could give him a sarcastic snap back, but Hoffman actually prefers when he doesn't ask. He's going to tell him all there is to know about this thing before he manages to ask, and compensate the lack of verbal abuse by backhanding Lawrence when he feels like it.

"This is your wheelchair," Hoffman states, unnecessarily, with both hands on the armrests of it. "John's said that now would be a good time for you to start moving around. You're going to have to gradually get used to moving without your foot, and when you have your prosthetic, you're going to get a cane. For now, though, this is what you get."

"What am I supposed to do with it?"

Hoffman gives him a dark look.

"The fuck would I care. You're not getting out of the room, anyway, so knock yourself out with whatever entertainment you can find in here."

"Aren't you going to use me for something soon?"

"You're useless before you can walk."

"I can do surgery sitting down."

"You're not doing a fucking thing before you're on both feet."

He looks at Lawrence again, clearly showing that the conversation is over and Lawrence will regret it if he tries to object him on that. Lawrence wants to think that fuck that, he's going to keep asking until he gets an answer, because if he gets punished, it's no less than he deserves, anyway.

But he doesn't even have that spirit going anymore. His self-hatred was the only thing that kept him going those first couple of days here, because it earned him food rationing, deprived privileges, the back of Hoffman's hand. But now, he doesn't even have that.

Lawrence is stupid, scared, and he doesn't want to get beaten up. It's basic human instinct, and he hates it intently.

There are a couple of seconds of silence during which Hoffman retreats to one of the dark corners of the room. The naked bulb in the ceiling died out few days back, and since then, the only light range in the room is from the metal skeletal lamp next to Lawrence's bed. Lawrence used to fee safer when Hoffman was in the room, his voice managed to keep the surreal monsters away and let him focus on the real ones. Now days, it's the other way around.

Hoffman's voice coming from the darkness makes even the real monsters seem surreal. And that only makes it worse.

"How long will you want me to do it?" Lawrence asks.

There's a chuckle from Hoffman and the darkness.

"This isn't exactly like employment at your hospital, Gordon," he says before stepping back into the light with a bottle of alcohol and new linen. "How the fuck am I supposed to know how good you'll be at this? Either you're a natural, and if so, great. Maybe you need training, and then you need more training than you're worth as an investment, and then we'll hand you into the authorities. Or you'll make a run for it yourself, and then we'll probably kill you and your family. Why do you ask, anyway? You don't have much out there to live for."

"I know," Lawrence says. "That's why I'm asking."

Hoffman doesn't seem to hear him. He holds the bottle of alcohol into the light, as if to check that's no one slipped something in it, and then he unscrews the cap.

"How much did you say I should use?" he asks as he tosses the blanket back, revealing Lawrence's stump.

"About two cups of it," Lawrence answers automatically. "But it's better with too much than too little."

Hoffman takes off the old bandages from Lawrence's ankle. He's somehow wound up in charge of Lawrence's medical condition, and he seems almost as bothered by that as Lawrence is. He's the best of bad options, though. He did say that he was the least likely to kill him.

Hoffman takes a dish of stainless steel from Lawrence's bedside table and places it under his stump. When he's dumped the dirty bandages in it, he pours some alcohol over it, before dabbing it clean and wrapping new linen. He's less rough now that he's realized that Lawrence won't be any trouble. The first couple of days, Lawrence thought Hoffman was more intended to keep him from ever walking again.

"Have you checked on my family?" he asks, almost shyly, as Hoffman tidies the nightstand from the medical stuff. He almost never gets to ask that.

Hoffman doesn't hit him this time, though. He sends him another one of his dark glances, but proceeds with throwing the used bandages in the trash. He doesn't look at Lawrence when he answers.

"They're fine."

If you can count that as an answer.

"How are they handling the money?" Lawrence goes on. This is something he never learns, or he doesn't want to learn. He always keeps pushing a question until Hoffman gets sick of him and acts accordingly. "The hospital is going to fire me soon. Alison has access to my saving account, doesn't she?"

Hoffman smiles grimly when he turns back to him.

"We'll make sure they get by. But who knows, maybe hell will freeze over and your wife is actually going to have to get a job."

Lawrence nods. He knows that Hoffman prefers when he doesn't show much reaction to anything he says.

"And… What about Adam?"

"He's been in there for almost a month. Do you want me to go check the level of decay?"

Lawrence feels a soft stab of nausea at that. Minimum reaction.

"No, I meant… Can't you get him out and… Make sure he gets a proper funeral?"

Hoffman very rarely makes eye contact with him, but at this, he gives Lawrence a long, sort of valuating look that he isn't sure how to interpret.

"John usually doesn't approve of that," he then says an gestures for Lawrence to roll over to check if he has a bedsore. That doesn't exactly help with the nausea. "If the cops find them, that's one thing, but I wouldn't count on that with Adam."

Lawrence is about to answer, though he's not sure what, as he rolls over again, but then the milk boils up again, and he has to close his eyes and press the heels of his palms against his forehead. By the time it's calmed down, he expects Hoffman to be gone, but he's still standing there when Lawrence drops his hands.

Or he thinks he does. Lawrence has seen so many things he could've imagined since he got here. And he has no idea how long that is.

Hoffman eyes him up and down. He looks like he thinks that Lawrence is expecting sympathy, and he might've given it to him if he didn't expect it, but as it is, he won't.

"If you ever want to start working, you better get that shit in line," he says and gives Lawrence a slightly wizened apple from his pocket.

"I'm sorry," Lawrence says and takes the apple. "I'll work on it. But I need to get out of here soon."

"You're not going anywhere until we say so," Hoffman says indifferently, and walks out of the room as Lawrence starts to tear the apple apart, his stomach slowly awakening to the memory of food and makes him so desperate for it that his hands are shaking as he eats.

Sometimes, he thinks that they'll let him start working sooner if he stops nagging. Sometimes, it feels like they'll never let him out at all, and it's for that case scenario Lawrence has noted on which shelf of the medicine cabinet Hoffman puts his morphine pills. He's not sure how many of them are enough, but if he can combine them with malnutrition and maybe a beat against the temple, it should be enough.

xxxxxxxxxxx

"He's a fucking waste of time," Amanda whines and makes a big show out of crossing her arm, as if to mark that that's the end of the discussion.

"He's extremely motivated," John says softly. "We might not need to brainwash him like I thought we would."

"Yeah, he _wants _to cut people open, and that's great," Amanda sighs. "But he's crippled, he has panic attacks and you barely leave him alone for ten minutes before he starts crying and flinging around and saying that Adam's everywhere. How the hell is he going to stand above someone, knowing _perfectly _well that they're going to die because of him, and keep a straight face?"

"None of that will be a problem," John answers, almost interrupting her. "He has panic attacks because he blames himself for what happened to his family. When we let him do surgery again, he's going to feel useful."

He pauses, looks away.

"Doctor Gordon is the worst kind of workaholic," he says, like this is something he's thought about a long time. "No matter what goes wrong in his life, he feels it is irrelevant as long as he gets to fix things. It doesn't even have to be what's wrong. As long as he gets to fix something."

Amanda looks disappointed. She knows she can't talk back, but she's not pleased. Hoffman, for the first time in a long time, doesn't step in to argue with her. Even though he actually does agree with John right now. Usually, he says he does even when he doesn't, just to go against her.

"He's going to be perfect," John finishes off. "The best, perhaps. As soon as he can walk, we are putting him on the field with the two of you."

Amanda glares into the floor. She wants to seem angry, but the corners of her mouth are quivering. She can't stand to be corrected by John, not in the tiniest aspects, and now, she's going to lock herself up and cry before she sneaks off to the heroin den on fifth.

When Hoffman knows she's upset, he usually pushes her even further down. He could do that now, too. He could tell her that he knows for a fact that Gordon will be fine, that it's when you feel the way he does that you're the most motivated to put people in traps. Because this is the stage of grief where you're willing to do anything, whether it's drinking, working, killing people or carve uneven, jagged patterns into your skin with a scalpel to take your mind off the pain.

He doesn't say that, though. He just follows Amanda out and goes to Gordon's bedroom to punish him for wailing too much. Because hey, who wants to be difficult.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Adjusting isn't hard. Lawrence has never had a problem with that. That was one of the main things that made him a good doctor. He could live with most things. If he couldn't sleep at night because he worked a late shift, then he simply went home in the morning afterwards to drop Diana off at school so he at least got to see her at some point that week, and collapsed in bed when he got back home. If he couldn't eat on regular hours, then he'd do surgery in blinding stomach pain and eat afterwards.

As long as he can work, he can adjust to anything. This is no different.

He learns how Jigsaw, Amanda and Hoffman work. What pisses each of them off. Most of the time, he stays clear of doing those things, sometimes he does those things, when he wants to be punished, those nights when the guilt becomes too much and Adam seems to stare at him not only from the corners, but the foot of his bed, the ceiling, through the tiny window in the door out of the room.

One day, he gets to talk to Diana again. He cries for about an hour afterwards, and for that, Amanda refuses to give him dinner.

Most of the time, though, it's Hoffman that takes care of him. Jigsaw rarely has time, or he's too weak, and when Lawrence does see him, he mostly says something cryptic about how he should start preparing himself for his final test, or how he's not safe yet, and Lawrence wants to tear his head off, those are the few times he feels angry now days. If anything, he's grateful if Jigsaw visits him alone. He really can't stand seeing that sweet-sleazy, openly _affectionate _way that Amanda looks at him if she's there with them.

One day, when Hoffman's away and Amanda is there to tend to his stump, Lawrence asks her for the millionth time if they're going to put him at work soon. She rolls her eyes and sighs like an annoyed teenager as she drops the dirty bandages in the trash.

"You know what John said when we brought you in?" she says, either mockingly or affectionately. "'We're going to have to brainwash him quite a bit before he understands the importance of what we do.' Or something like that. Guess he didn't know how much you like to whore yourself out, huh?"

Lawrence doesn't snap something back. Why would he? It's all the same to him. He can be a whore, or a doctor, or both, as long as he gets to work as it.

As if she's read his mind, Amanda looks at his stump, her head cocked slightly to the side. Hoffman made some clumsy stitches across it a week or something back, and by the time Lawrence managed to keep his screams of pain to a minimum and tell him that the wound was too big for stitches but would need a skin transplant, he was already halfway through. Despite that, though, it has healed pretty good.

"Well, you're the expert," Amanda says, definitely mockingly this time. "But it looks to me like you should be ready for that prosthetic, so… Ugh, I don't know. I'll talk to John, if it's that fucking important to you. Maybe you're actually useful by now."

Lawrence almost starts bouncing up and down in his bed. The joy is overwhelming, almost sending him into a frenzy as Amanda walks out the door. Finally he'll get to do something. _Finally. _

His wife will never forgive him, his daughter will never see him again and he's killed the only real friend he's ever had, but that's okay. He'll get to work. It'll be okay now.

He'll make things right now. And he's so happy that he doesn't even notice that the numb, grinding pain in his ankle gets even worse when he thinks about everything he leaves behind to substitute with the only thing that's ever made him feel useful.


	7. Don't You Love Me Now?

A/N: Why, yes… I do have a new chapter. And I'm going to be honest; I wrote the last couple of pages when I was drunk off my head and deeply depressed, but hey… If it worked for Hemingway, it can sure as hell worked for a completely un-legendary, female, beardless fanfiction writer! …I think. But either way, you're the judges. ;)

**6: Don't You Love Me Now? **

"When's he picking me up tomorrow?" Lawrence says, one day when the nightmares have been excruciating and the voices have been screaming and the milk hasn't just boiled up but he's left it on the stove for twenty minutes and it's exploded over the kitchen fan and the pot has been scorched black, I'm sorry mom, please forgive me.

Hoffman gives him a look as he pours some water in a glass and hands it to Lawrence.

"You won't be able to tell either way," he says, almost tiredly, and takes a pill from the bottle on Lawrence's nightstand.

"I still want to know," Lawrence says softly and reaches out an open palm to accept the pill Hoffman hands to him.

It was Lawrence's idea to put him on antibiotics to prevent infection in his stump. Hoffman wasn't too keen on the idea; he knew that it was probably just a result of Lawrence's OCD and didn't want to have to keep track of another part in Lawrence's recovery. But John was more than happy to send him out to get some more pills if it maintained what was left of Lawrence's mental stability.

And even though the pills didn't really take away the feeling that all the dirt in this room were basically crawling on Lawrence where he lied, immobile and filthy, they helped. A little.

Sometimes.

"We're expected to have knocked the guy out and brought him back here sometime around ten PM," Hoffman sighed and walked over to the foot of the bed, leaning against the frame. "Then John will bring you to the operating room and you'll… Do whatever it is you do."

Lawrence nods. It's possible that he actually smiles.

"Good."

Hoffman nods, pursing his lips slightly.

"Have you tried the prosthetic?"

"Yeah…" Lawrence says, rubbing the side of his face with his hand. "It's a bit wobbly. I'm going to need that cane."

"That's why I brought it," Hoffman says, gesturing feebly at the cane he showed Lawrence when he first walked in. "You can practice with it until he comes for you."

Lawrence nods again. Hoffman gives him a look before he starts walking towards the door, but Lawrence calls him back, with that stupid feeling of guilt he always gets when he asks for stuff from them.

"Before you leave… Can you clean the smudges on the medicine cabinet and the wall… Over there?"

Hoffman looks from Lawrence to where he's pointing. Then he rolls his eyes.

"There's nothing there, Gordon."

"Please?"

Using the wheelchair gives Lawrence dirty hands, from brushing his hands against the wheels as he moves around. That alone isn't a problem, Lawrence can clean his hands on his own. The problem is the tiny smears he leaves on the walls, the doorknob, the edges of the tables. He doesn't notice them when he makes them, but when he goes back to his bed, there they are, tiny, itchy, sort of crawling, and they somehow always manages to disappear when he gets up to wipe them off.

It's no problem at all that the entire room is so dirty that technically, Lawrence probably needs a leper shot after spending so much time in here. It's the little things that bother Lawrence, not the inch-thick layer of grease covering the walls or the unidentified, dark stuff smeared along the opposite wall. It's the little dots, the smudges. Those tiny things. They're the ones that crawl.

Hoffman looks at Lawrence. Sighs wearily before he walks over to the table by the opposite wall, trying to find the spot where Lawrence is pointing.

"Right here?" he says and points to a spot on the edge of it.

"More to your left," Lawrence says, keeps pointing. "There. Yeah, exactly."

"It's gone now?" Hoffman says when he's wiped the spot down with his sleeve. "Any more imaginary stuff you need me to take care of?"

"No."

"I shouldn't check for monsters under your bed?"

"No. They come out at night even if you can't see them."

Hoffman lowers his gaze briefly. If Lawrence had just gotten offended by his sarcasm, it'd just give him that cold thrill he gets when he can degrade someone, but when these monsters are so real to him that he doesn't understand sarcasm at all, he's not sure how it makes him feel.

"But…" Lawrence says, twisting his hands a little and keeping his eyes on the ceiling, "I still really want you… To go check on A-Adam…"

Hoffman feels his gaze darkening. Lawrence still doesn't look at him, but he seems to tell just from Hoffman's silence how close he is to backhand him again.

"I just don't want him to… To…"

"To die in there?" Hoffman fills in bitterly.

"Yeah," Lawrence says, swallowing a few times, his eyes growing distant in that way they usually do before he has one of those weird panic attacks and has to cover his face with his hands.

Hoffman remembers how Lawrence looked when John first showed him and Amanda his picture. Hair neatly combed, that smile bordering to smirk that seemed to say that hey, I'm your man, I can save your life and raise my kid and fuck you six ways from Sunday, whichever you prefer, just let me take off my tailor-made doctor's coat and we'll get right to it.

Everything was so organized. Lawrence looked like he had everything in order. On that picture, so long ago.

And now he looks like this. This pathetic, broken down, malnourished man with panic attacks and delusions, who's lost everything but still feels in control as long as there are no smears of dust on the edge of a medicine cabinet.

Hoffman has no idea why that annoys him so much. But he's not much for analyzing. Not when John has more or less given him permission to be as rough with Gordon as he liked.

"Get the fuck over yourself," he says sharply. Lawrence doesn't startle the way he hoped for, he just slowly adjusts his gaze to Hoffman's face, like he'd sort of just remembered that he was there. That's not going to throw Hoffman off his game, though. "What is it you're hoping's going to happen, huh? If I go back and check on the kid's _rotting, decaying corpse, _he's going to somehow, through some fucking miracle of nature, still be alive? Is that what you're aiming for, Gordon?"

Lawrence just stares back at him. Still only half-aware of what's going on, but shocked. Good. _Good. _

"Don't think I don't see what's going on here," Hoffman hisses, takes another step towards the bed. "And you're just fooling yourself, okay? You're growing to love a dead guy. And hell, you only knew him for six hours, so it's not even him, you love the fucking _idea _of him. But it's over. He's gone. And you're with us now."

He'd hoped for a better way to finish this, but he can't think of one. He just stands there, drinking in the sight of Gordon's face in the meantime as he wants nothing more than to forget it; the slight gape, the tortured strain in his eyebrows, the pain of an insight sinking in for the first time after knowing it for way too long.

_It took you about two months to actually realize that she was dead, _says some little voice in the back of his head.

It's true. And Hoffman should have bigger sympathy for Lawrence than he does.

But he doesn't. He closes the door and leaves, and he hopes that Lawrence has stopped hoping, because it's better that way.

xxxxxxxxxxx

_You could've saved me. _

_I could never save you. You were doomed from the start. We both were. _

_You didn't have to fucking shoot me, did you? _

_Yes, I did. I did. _

_You didn't, and you know it. _

Lawrence whimpers something and covers his eyes with his hand. Adam isn't even that angry. He rarely is. But there's still no possible way that Lawrence can look at him.

_You must've known it would haunt you forever. _

_I wasn't thinking. _

_And you won't think about it. You'll work with the bastard that did this to us. _

Lawrence clutches to his own hair. Eyes squeezed shut, trembling.

_Look at me, Lawrence. _

_No. _

_Look at me. _

_Don't do this to me. _

_Do it. _

_No. _

"Gordon."

Amanda's voice is damn near bored. Lawrence takes his hand from his eyes, after certain hesitation, because he knows that even if Amanda's in the room now, reminding him of what's real even if what's real is downright horror, won't take away Adam, standing there, glaring at Amanda, sort of accusingly, because he doesn't want her to torture Lawrence even if he does nothing less himself.

Lawrence manages to focus his gaze. When Hoffman catches him like this, he at least has the courtesy of acting like nothing's happened. Amanda looks at him with raised eyebrows and a mockery of a nice grin on her face. Sort of like when you watch someone who you pretend to be a friend to do something stupid when they're drunk, and even though you do your best to take care of them, you really can't wait to tell them about this the next morning.

Lawrence just stares at her for a couple of seconds. Tries to determine, this is what's real, this horrible woman is what's real, and even if she's horrible, she's better than the option, focus on her, she's the one thing keeping you sane. Amanda just seems to look forward to telling John how useless Lawrence is and they're all better off if they kill him as soon as possible.

"If you can tone down on the hallucinations, John's ready for you now," she says softly.

Lawrence nods. Deliberately not looking at Adam.

"Sure. What am I supposed to do?"

Amanda beckons to the wheelchair next to Lawrence's bed. Lawrence starts wrestling his way out of the sweat-soaked sheets to sit up.

"There's this guy," she says as Lawrence heaves himself off the mattress. "He used to be a snitch, and now we're trying to turn him around. That's supposed to be his old life, and now he's going to make himself a new one. And in order to achieve that… He needs to make a sacrifice."

She's directly quoting John, word by word. Lawrence can hear it. He hasn't even seen Amanda in action yet, and already knows she doesn't care about John's philosophies. She wants pain, nothing more. And who's Lawrence to question her on that.

"You're going to insert the key behind his eye," Amanda concludes. "The key to what is not relevant. Think of it as the key to his survival. But either way, he's going to have to cut out his eye to get to it."

Lawrence nods as he finally settles down in the wheelchair. Amanda takes his cane in one hand and puts it over her shoulder. His prosthetic is already in place.

"Does that bother you?" she asks as Lawrence starts wheeling himself out.

"Does what?" Lawrence asks as he stops in front of the door, waiting for her to open. Amanda smiles, like she finds his ignorance endearing, and unlocks the door.

"He's probably going to die," she says, almost politely. "And it's going to be because of that key that you place behind his eye. Doesn't that bother you?"

Lawrence shakes his head as he keeps rolling down the hallway. He hasn't even seen this part of the building before, but he doesn't care about it. His hands are shaking with anticipation to get there.

"No," he says. "I just want to get it done."

Amanda doesn't ask him anything else. It's possible that such a purely sadistic, or maybe just selfish, answer, scared her off, but Lawrence doesn't care. He's barely aware of her presence next to him as they keep moving down the hallway, even less so when they actually get to the operating room, if you can call it that, this raw-cold room with dim light and yellowing tiles, with Hoffman and John lined up next to the table where the man is lying.

Lawrence's hands are shaking as he heaves himself out of the wheelchair, but when he picks up the scalpel, so impatient that he barely manages to focus on John when he tells him exactly what this man did to deserve this, they're steady as rocks. As robot hands.

He's always had that ability. It didn't matter if he'd had a fight with Alison, if he hadn't eaten in twelve hours, if his mother had just called him to tell him that his father died – as shaken up as he was before he entered the operating room, the second he grabbed that scalpel, all human feelings went away.

He makes a cut right below the man's right eye and inserts the key. It's now right behind his eye socket, he swears on that when John asks him and even when Amanda grabs his collar and hisses inaudible threats about what'll happen when he's wrong inches from his face. Then he sits down, not even realizing that he's sweaty and exhausted, until he lifts his hands and realizes that they're shaking again.

"You've done well, doctor Gordon," John says as Lawrence collapses in his wheelchair. "I think I was right before. Maybe you will turn out to be my most valuable asset."

Just that simple praise moves Lawrence so deep in his core that he can't even wheel himself back to his room. Hoffman has to drive him, and while he does, Lawrence cries hysterically, ten times worse than when he got to talk to Diana again, until they get back to his room, because there, Hoffman backhands him again, on the exact same spot where he did it all the previous times, and says that he better get his fucking act together, or they'll put him back on the street.

He could've threatened Lawrence to cut off his other foot. This is still the first time, the first time he's felt truly happy, since he found out his family was still alive. And he doesn't even think about how wrong that is, because he won't have to, he won't have to think. He has this now. He has work.


	8. I Died And I Loved It

A/N: Yada yada, new chapter. Lawrence being unhappy and insane, Adam ghosting around, Hoffman being conflicted and Amanda being a bitch. …Yeah, this fanfic is pretty monotone. XD

**7: I Died and I Loved It**

Amanda brings him in again about a week later. She looks deeply bitter about having to do it.

"John is going to need you tomorrow."

Lawrence has been so restless through the days since his last surgery that he's almost picked up walking again through sheer stubbornness, clunkily moving around the room with his cane until the sweat is dripping down his face and his right hand is red and swollen. He can't stand being a helpless cripple, not after getting a taste of what it's like to be _able,_ to do something. Finally. After spending months in that fucking bed with nothing but his thoughts.

It's like the blood set him free. Having that slick-warm on his hands again, seeing skin split under the scalpel and knowing that it's _him, he's _doing this, he's the difference between life and death for this guy, and knowing that, he doesn't even have to think about Adam, Diana, the saw, the milk boiling up.

He couldn't watch when the guy went through the trap. But that didn't seem very relevant. If he died, it was Lawrence's fault, and another life on his conscience doesn't make much of a difference to him. As long as he doesn't have to think about it, it's fine.

"For what?"

"We need the right dose of nerve gas for some kids to die in an hour."

Lawrence sits up on the bed, feeling his stump to check for inflammation. Just in case.

"I have no idea. You need a toxicologist for that."

"We don't have _fucking _time for that," Amanda sputters out. "You better figure it out. We didn't bring you in for company, you're going to have to earn your place here."

"I know, I know," Lawrence says hurriedly. "I'm just saying... I'd hate for something to go wrong just because you asked the wrong guy."

Amanda takes a couple of steps closer, her hands clenching into fists by her sides. Lawrence hates her temper. Not because he's scared of her the same way he is of Hoffman, but because it's annoying. She has the ability to make everything he says sound wrong, like Alison when she's mad at him but won't show it, or Diana when he hasn't picked her up from school even though he promised. And if it's any kind of feeling Lawrence wants to avoid when he's in charge of life and death, it's that.

"This isn't your hospital," Amanda says after stepping so close that Lawrence has to crane his head back to look at her. "You still don't seem to have gotten that. We didn't bring you in because we needed a surgeon or an oncologist or whatever the fuck it is you do, we brought you in because we needed an extra set of hands, and the fact that yours are a doctor's was just a plus. So if John tells you that you're going to figure this out, you damn well better do it. And if it seems hard, just think of your little girls at home, and I'm sure you'll find the motivation."

Lawrence keeps looking at her, sighs. He'd almost prefer it if she scared him. She mostly comes off as a teenage girl with a lot of anger, a lot of insecurities and all these things she wants nothing more than to take out on the world, but she doesn't have the words, or even the fists, to be a real threat to anyone.

"I'll do whatever the hell you want," Lawrence finally says. "But don't talk about my family, or I'll bash your fucking brains in."

Amanda's jaw tightens. Lawrence keeps looking at her. He wouldn't be surprised if she slapped him, but she just storms out. There hasn't been a lot of monsters around lately, but Lawrence still misses her when she leaves.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

He manages to figure out how much nerve gas to use. He gets a few medical text books where he can catch up on the stuff he doesn't know, and his knowledge on anatomy is pretty developed even when he's repressing an army of demons. When John explains the way the gas attacks the system and which weight class the kids are in, he can bring a fairly well-founded guess.

It feels so damn good. When Lawrence gets to perform a surgery, or any kind of work, even if it's something as plain as telling John what kind of blade to give the players if they're going to cut each other open, it takes the entire day out of him. He can barely walk back to his room afterwards, Hoffman has to drag him. But once he's rested, all he wants is more of it. More, and the monsters go away.

Hoffman seems less annoyed with him now days. Lawrence wouldn't care, it's not Hoffman's approval he's craving, but since Hoffman's the only steady company he gets, the one who brings him food, the one who tells him when to sleep and wakes him up when he has nightmares, it's hard to ignore him.

Before, when the monsters were there all the time, Hoffman barely wanted to look at him, and when he did, it was just to yell at or scare him. Now, he doesn't seem mad. Just… Suspicious. When Lawrence goes through a whole night without nightmares, or the times after an operation when he's actually happy for a change, Hoffman gives him this look. Like he sees right through him.

Lawrence doesn't get why he'd do that. Whatever's inside him now, no human being should have to see.

"He's barely having nightmares anymore," Hoffman says one day, when John and he are discussing Lawrence as he's sound asleep on the bed between them. "You were right, working makes him better."

John looks at Lawrence. For some reason, his expression makes Hoffman worried. Like Lawrence is some kind of machinery that works okay, but only barely well enough to be worth the costs to keep it going.

"This wasn't what I planned," John says after a few long seconds. "He's still dead inside. I planned for this to heal him."

Hoffman tries to keep his eyes steady on him. He doesn't know why this makes him so nervous. Hell, he hasn't felt anything at all in the past seven years. Why is the idea of another life on his conscience, when he wouldn't even be the one killing Gordon if he turned out to be useless, so terrifying?

"He's a lot like I was when you took me in," he says. "And… I'm still messed up. I still don't feel a thing. But you keep me around."

John looks back at Hoffman in a way he doesn't know how to interpret. Hoffman doesn't blame him if he's puzzled, he has no idea why he talks the way he does. He's never referred to himself as a burden to John, even though he has been, more than once. He's never talked about the guilt and the fear he struggled with when he started doing this, and if he ever would, he shouldn't do it to save the skin of a traumatized doctor that John has somehow gotten the idea that he needs.

John keeps that look on his face for a long time. Hoffman does his best to meet it.

"It must stir up a lot of feelings in you," he finally says softly. "You were almost exactly like this when you started working for me. You were just a little better at hiding it."

Hoffman discards all his previous efforts and lowers his gaze.

"Yeah," is all he can think of answering. "It might cloud my judgment a bit."

Not as much as this, though. It was fine when he could focus on Gordon's mere existence annoying him. When John points out why, it makes him want to knock a table over and then scream into nothing.

"Would you like Amanda to take care of him instead?" John asks. Hoffman shakes his head.

"No. You know what she's like. She'd kill him."

John gives him that look that shows that he'd probably nod if it wouldn't hurt him too much. Then he puts one hand on each of the armrests of his chair, heaving himself up with a cringe. He starts walking out, every step making a graveled, dragged sound against the grimy floor.

"Try to keep him from thinking of Adam," he mumbles as he passes Hoffman on the way out.

Hoffman nods, though he's a little surprised. He didn't think John had caught up on what Adam meant to Lawrence. Not a lot of things pass by him, but after it was established that he was stable enough to live and that Adam would die, John's barely been around Gordon at all. If he's still realized that there's a bond between the two of them, that Lawrence still hasn't forgotten him after getting over the initial sorrow of causing his death, then he's definitely going to use it against Lawrence. Hoffman isn't sure how he feels about that.

Before John started letting Lawrence perform surgeries, Hoffman would say that there was nothing he could say or do that could keep Adam off of Lawrence's mind. Now, though, he's not so sure. Lawrence seems so sane, almost normal, it's hard to imagine that he's still talking to a ghost of Adam when he thinks Hoffman can't hear him. Like he's gotten past the whole thing, and all it took was a couple of surgeries.

That thought makes Hoffman feel relieved, despite all the stuff that seems to be going to hell right now. The thought that he won't ever have to wake Lawrence from a nightmare again is one headache less to worry about. It's weird, and totally unlike the way he acted after she died, but damn, it's so, so relieving to think that he'll no longer have to wake Lawrence up, see those haunted eyes look back up at him… And see right into the eyes that were his own just a couple of years ago.

Hoffman is relieved about it. But the next day, when he wakes Lawrence up and a pair of completely sane eyes look back at him, he can't help but wondering.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Lawrence has a dream that night. It's not even a nightmare, it's just weird, and it scares him anyway. It includes standing in his childhood home, in the kitchen, with Adam in front of him. Adam doesn't look angry, just disappointed. Lawrence tries to tell him that he doesn't have time for him. He needs to perform an operation. He doesn't know where or when or why, but he knows it's soon and that he has to get there. And he tries to explain this to Adam, but Adam just looks disappointed, and Lawrence gets annoyed.

_You could've come back for me, man. _

"I couldn't do a damn thing," Lawrence barks out at him. "And I can't do anymore about it now, because you're _dead, _okay? You're fucking _dead! _Why are you still hassling me about it?"

Adam doesn't answer. He just stands there, looking disappointed, and Lawrence picks up the pot standing on the stove next to them. He knows somehow that it's the same pot that he used to try to boil milk in, but it never turned out well, never the way it should, it just boiled too much and got spilled on the stove and burned into the bottom of the pot, and Lawrence hates it, that _fucking _pot with the _fucking _milk that ruined everything, and he picks it up and beats Adam over the head with it.

Adam somehow manages to keep talking as Lawrence hits him. Keeps saying that Lawrence could've done something, that he could've come back for them or sent someone else back for him, and Lawrence keeps hitting him. Because Adam doesn't understand. He needs to do this and he needs Adam to stay away, because it's so much harder to be a doctor with someone around to remind him that he's a human being.

Lawrence keeps beating Adam in his dream. When he wakes up afterwards, he's officially gone from Lawrence to doctor Gordon.


	9. Can You Bleed Like Him

A/N: Heyhey, people! I've got a brand new, shiny chapter right here. And I must admit, I didn't really know where I was going with the whole Hoffman-development, but then I realized that not only can I please my own sick obsession with Hoffman, but also use him to awesomely tie together the story for you guys! So everybody's happy!

**8: Can You Bleed Like Me**

"You hungry?"

Gordon looks up from the files John gave him earlier today. He looks like he barely remembered that Hoffman was there until he spoke up.

"Uh, yeah," he says halfheartedly and starts reading again. "Sure."

He doesn't sound too excited. Hoffman doesn't blame him. It's too early for dinner. He just needs an excuse to get out, because he's bored out of his mind, and Gordon knows what sort of food he usually gets at this place, anyway. Plus, now days, he seems too _busy _to eat, with all these charts and games and shit that he has to take care of. Hoffman can't help but missing the days when he came in with food and Gordon was so eager for the food that he basically tore it out of his hands.

Hoffman stands up and grabs his coat from his bed. He starts walking towards the door, and gets annoyed when he notices that he walks slower than usual, his gaze flickering over to the bed in the corner, where Gordon is half-sitting, with the tiniest wrinkle between his eyebrows.

"I'll go get us some pizza," he says, and at this, at least Gordon looks up. "You like that, don't you?"

Lawrence opens his mouth slowly.

"Yeah, I do," he says, and actually lowers the charts he's holding. "That sounds great."

He seems more surprised than happy, but at least it's a reaction. So it's with at least a little satisfaction that Hoffman walks out of the room and locks the door behind him.

He doesn't like the way he's acting now days. Like he really needs Gordon's company. This beats having to wake him up from his damn tossing and wriggling every time he had a nightmare, but it still doesn't make sense. When John started giving Gordon assignments, it demanded a lot from him mentally.

Especially considering that Gordon was still more or less insane.

Gordon's solution for that is simple. He's still a super-surgeon, but lately, rather than staring blankly into his laptop, like he did in his old life, he apparently needs some kind of ball plank to keep his thoughts straight when he looks into a new game.

"This guy weighs approximately 350 pounds," he'd say, with papers scattered neatly across his lap. "No previous cardiac condition, no blood diseases, no terminal illness… And with a nerve gas spreading at this rate, it should take…"

Hoffman still isn't sure if Gordon's talking to him when he says stuff like that. But he's always the only person in the room, and he never has anything better to do. And if Gordon would, against every odds, lose his tracks or not know where to go from there, Hoffman helps to his best efforts. Not that he knows anything about medicine, but sometimes, it seems to be enough if he just says something encouraging. Or just brings his mind off of… Whatever's distracting him. Stupid things, like his family, his life back home.

None of that is for Gordon, though, Hoffman knows that much. He would've made Gordon feel like he was on top of the world if he could, because then he'd do a better job for _John._ As it is, the best he can do is to make Gordon feel like he's alive and there are no monsters in the room, and they just have to work around that.

It's not as hard as it could've been. Gordon doesn't have the panic attacks anymore, and that's probably the best they can hope for.

Hoffman finds an okay pizza place nearby, buys something good for himself and takes a halfhearted chance on what Gordon might like. When he leaves the restaurant a couple of minutes later, it strikes him that he's basically been bunk buddies with this guy for months now, and he still has no idea what he's like. Under normal circumstances, that would've been weird, but these circumstances can't really be considered normal.

They don't really talk much, after all. And when they do, it's either because Gordon is panicking about something, or it's because they're planning to put someone in a trap and watch them die.

Hoffman stops in his tracks when that thought hits him. It only takes a second before his brain connects in the only way it can: _Remember what John says, _and then he keeps walking, head down, so that no one will recognize him or find any reason to follow him back to their den.

He's going to go back, and do everything John tells him to do. But the okay mood he got from going outside – he doesn't get to do that often if it isn't to show his face at the police station to make it seem like he still does something there – is gone. He looks down at the pizza boxes and suddenly wants nothing more than to throw them into a wall.

He doesn't, though. He walks back home, into the building, back to his and Gordon's room. Like John would tell him to do. Like he's supposed to do.

Gordon looks up when he walks into the room. Hoffman tries to ignore how oddly exposed that makes him feel, and strides up to the hospital bed, awkwardly placing the pizza boxes on Gordon's knees. He's met with a look like Gordon's forgotten that he even left the room, let alone told him where he was going.

"They're pizzas," Hoffman says wearily and gestures towards the boxes. "You know, that you eat."

Gordon keeps staring at him for a moment. If he's slow normally now days, it's nothing against what he's like when he's meant to take a joke.

"Oh…" he then says and looked down at the boxes. "Okay… Which one is mine?"

Hoffman shrugs.

"Whichever. I don't really care."

Gordon stares at him for another couple of seconds, before he nods and opens the box on top. Then he opens the box and looks at the pizza. Hoffman doesn't put much thought into that; Gordon spends most of his time trying to analyze things now days. If you give him a glass of water, he can't drink it before he's looked at it for a while like he's trying to figure out why there's suddenly a glass of water in front of him. So instead of making a sarcastic remark about how stupid he looks, Hoffman just takes the other box from his lap and brings it to the chair next to the bed.

He starts eating, still not really thinking about the fact that Gordon doesn't follow suit. But when he's halfway done, and Gordon still hasn't touched his food, Hoffman looks up, and notices that he doesn't stare at the pizza like he usually does when he's trying to figure it out, when his brain is too worn out from suppression and gut-wrenching regret to process things from the real world. Now, Gordon just stares at his food like he wants to stomp it to pieces with his one foot.

Hoffman sighs audibly, hoping and failing to draw some kind of reaction from this idiot. God, he's so not in the mood for this. All he wanted was to kill some of his own monotony, getting some fresh air, and hopefully put a smile on Gordon's face so he wouldn't have to watch that fucking zombie-look he wears all the time. But no. Of course he can't have even that.

"What's your fucking problem?" he snarls and drops a crust in his almost empty box. "I know you're a fucking lunatic psycho, Gordon, but that's really no excuse. You're not as bad as me, and even I'm normal enough to like pizza."

Gordon doesn't even look up. Hoffman wants to tear those goddamn ogling eyes out of his head.

"Diana."

It's barely more than a mutter. Hoffman still hears it, from the sheer amount of different emotions in that word.

"I used to… When… I… I…"

"Breathe."

Gordon takes a deep breath, at least stable enough to hide his hands under the covers. As if Hoffman hasn't already noticed that they're shaking.

"I… When I was late picking up Diana from school…" Gordon finally gets out, closing his eyes. "Which was a lot. I was never on time, if showed up at all. And then I… I'd take her to this pizza place. To say I was sorry. For being late. And she was always mad at me, and she should've been, because I was a bad… I was a bad… Fa-fa-father…"

Hoffman sighs, putting the box back down on the floor.

"Gordon," he says, firmly. "Gordon. Listen to me. Don't think about that. It's going to interfere with your work. Don't think about that shit. It's a waste of time. Right?"

Lawrence releases a quivering exhale, still clearly wanting nothing more than to just die, but at least he turns his head and looks at Hoffman, pale eyes, almost transparent. He barely hears him, it doesn't matter what he says.

In his head, Gordon is back home, with his daughter. Which is probably why it's so painful to him to look around and see that he's in fact in a filthy, grim imitation of a hospital room.

"Don't think about it," Hoffman repeats, almost desperately now. "You're going to work, right? You have a job to do. A very important job, that only you can do… And _breathe, _goddamn it."

Gordon takes a few quivering, hyperventilating breaths, stares firmly at a spot in the ceiling. Hoffman barely dares to lean back, hell, he hadn't even realized that he was sitting leaned forward to make sure he was looking Gordon in the eye. It seems like forever that they sit like that, with Gordon trying to control himself, Hoffman having no idea why this makes him feel this way. Like someone's put a knife in a drape that he used to cover up something he didn't want to see.

It takes a couple of minutes, but eventually, Gordon exhales heavily and takes his hands back out. They're not shaking anymore.

"Okay," he says. "Okay. I'm just going to work."

He means it, Hoffman hears that. He means it in a different way than he did before. He means that he's not going to get things like this get the best of him anymore, he's not going to sleep for fourteen hours after he's done a surgery because it takes so much out of him. He's not going to talk to Adam when he's alone.

He's not going to look at a pizza and see his daughter. He's not going to see her at all anymore.

That's a good thing. He's going to do a better job for John.

And Hoffman still can't be satisfied about it.

"Good," he says anyway. "That's the only thing you're useful for here, anyway. Now, would you eat your fucking pizza?"

Gordon doesn't even look at him. He just obeys orders. He opens the carton, takes a slice of pizza and eats it. Blank face. Doesn't see his daughter. Probably doesn't see anything at all.

Hoffman leans back and finishes his pizza, too. He really can't remember why he ever felt good about buying these things. Now, he wishes he could've just been happy eating whatever crap they had in the fridge back here.

xxxxxxxxxxx

It's one of those bad nights tonight. Hoffman hasn't cried in almost seven years, but during these nights, he's too damn close to it.

This is why he has no compassion for Gordon being so _loud _when he has nightmares. At least Hoffman has the common courtesy of being quiet when he wakes up after watching her die. Again.

It's not like that tonight, though. Tonight, it's just weird as hell. He has a dream that Angelina dies again, but this time, it's Gordon that kills her. Hoffman tries to beat him up, but Gordon keeps saying that it's work, he has to do it. Hoffman tries to understand what kind of fucking work that is, killing people for no reason… Before he remembers that he's the one that taught Gordon that job, and then he looks down at his hands, and sees that he's the one holding a bloody knife…

Even after that dream, Hoffman manages to wake up quietly. But he's never been as sweaty as he is that night, that image of the dream so vivid on his retina. He tries to convince himself that he's fine, even tries to stand up, but for God's sake, can't the floor stop moving?

Hoffman sits back down. Spends a few minutes trying to control his breathing. Then he stands up and goes to the nearest bar. He's promised John never to drink again, and up until now, he's kept that promise, but it's never been this bad. He's had dreams before where he's somehow responsible for her death, but never like this.

Never the knife in his hand.

Hoffman orders a double Whiskey. At this point, he'd prefer the whole damn bottle and a straw. _Fucking_ Gordon. Making him think of it again.

He rarely actually thinks about that night now days. It's mostly in his dreams. He'd prefer it if he just thought about it, then he could've stopped it when he wanted to. It feels like it'd be enough to _think_ that it was his fault that his sister died _once,_ and then he could've dropped it. That would've made him feel horrible enough. Having that statement played out in different interpretations in his head when he can't do anything about them is more than he can stand, even now that he doesn't feel anything.

He has no idea what Gordon did there, though. He had nothing to do with Angelina, and even less to do with the fact that she was murdered. Hoffman downs his shot, orders another one and waited for the warm rush in his stomach. He didn't even know that Gordon existed until about six months ago, and she died long before that.

She died… Almost nine years ago. Just a couple of months after he made detective.

Wow. He's never really thought of it that way. Hoffman gulps down another shot. It burns all the way down.

It seemed like so much less time. Maybe because he's spent the majority of that time trying not to think about it.

_What did you think about instead? When you stopped thinking about her, what did you think of to make up for it? _

John.

Definitely John. The only reason he stopped obsessing over Angelina is that John found him. He picked him up from the gutter, from that mockery of heroism he showed off at the station and showed him what it was really like to save a life. Hoffman downs another shot. Putting his head down on the counter suddenly seems like an awesome idea.

John saved him. Yeah. That was it.

_What did he save you from? _

He saved him from… Angelina. Which was good. He needed that.

_He saved you from the only person you've truly loved? You really needed saving from your only family?_

_I did, _Hoffman argues. He has no idea if he said it out loud or just in his head, but he doesn't really find it in him to care. _She was… She messed me up. I couldn't take it with her… There all the time. It's better now. It is. _

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he reminds himself that this is exactly why he stopped drinking. Even the dead mind, even the rare flashes of complete, pitch-black panic he occasionally felt if something reminded him of her, is better than being too tired and drunk to defend himself against his own goddamn logical mind.

_It's better now. And now you're trying to turn Gordon into the exact same… Thing as you are. _

_I have to. _

_For your own sake. _

_It's for John. He… He can't have some goddamn pussy running around and flipping shits about his daughter. _

_It's for you. _

_Fuck you. _

_You can't stand seeing him feeling things you can't feel anymore. _

_Fuck you. _

Hoffman had no idea at what state he leaned his forehead against the counter, but there he is. Goddamn it. He wasn't going to do this anymore. And there has to be some way for him to sit back up, but it occurs to him as very complicated somehow.

Fucking Gordon. He wasn't going to do this anymore.

Fucking Gordon fucking things up.

He's going to do something about him as soon as he's had another drink.


	10. Grass Root Level

A/N: Heeeaaar, it's your ChainShipping conscience speaking. I'm here to tell you that you're still desperate to know what's going to find out in this fanfic, even though your humble author hasn't updated it in so long that you're probably going to have to reread the past chapter to remember what the hell was going on.

No, seriously, I really am sorry for the wait. I've missed the hell out of this fanfic, but I had to redo some stuff on We'll Get There Someday to send it off to a publishing company, and then I left home and I got a job and got all grown up 'n shit. XD If I still have any readers out there, I'll give you all a big fat hug for bearing with me for this long. And know that if I leave anything hanging in the future: I _never _leave a fanfic unfinished.

**9: Grass Root Level **

When Hoffman realized that he wanted to be a cop, he was in denial about it for about two years.

He did that for the same reasons as every young man does something to hurt himself: because of his father. If Angelina had known that it was what he wanted, she would've faked his signature on an admission form to get him to police training, but he was so good at pretending, and he would've faked anything if he thought it'd made her happy.

Their father had been a cop. A good one, which was probably why he was so tortured by it. As Hoffman has learned later on, the only way to be a really good cop is to have no personal life, or at least one that you can ignore. Even better if you're doing your best to run away from it.

Hoffman remembers how, as a kid, he was genuinely jealous of kids with crappy parents. Like, really crappy parents. When there was word going around in class that someone's mom was an alcoholic, or the reason someone else wasn't in school yesterday was that his dad put him in the emergency room, he hated those kids for not getting how lucky they were. At least they had a _proper _reason to hate their parents. How could he explain why he hated his father, how could they understand that his father fought criminals and made the world a better place, and _that _was what ruined their family?

He'd rather take an abusive father than one who you were worried wouldn't make it home. One that missed out on all Angelina's soccer games because he spent his lunch break looking for gun powder residue at a crime scene. One who mom couldn't even kiss hello when he came home, because if something had gone wrong at work today, and there was always something, _always something… _

Hoffman and Angelina spent their childhood hiding from the anger that could break out in their usually so sweet father. When a case went wrong or someone undeserving walked free, it was uncontrollable, no matter how much he apologized afterwards.

Angelina was never mad at him. She didn't see a reason to, because their father never meant to hurt them. He did the best with what he could. That didn't interest Hoffman in the slightest. He didn't want someone that wantedto do right by them, he wanted someone who _did. _

"Angie," he said one night, they were sitting in her bedroom, her legs dangling out the window, they looked white in the moonligt, as she smoked her fourth cigarette. "I… I think I want to be a cop."

She turned to him. He wasn't used to seeing her surprised.

"Really?" she said and looked back out the window. "Wow…"

Her voice faded. Hoffman was afraid to speak up, but after a while, she'd been quiet for so long that he couldn't take it any more.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled and looked down at his fidgeting hands. This caused Angelina to turn around again, wrinkle between her eyebrows.

"Why are you saying that?"

"Because I…" he cleared his throat. "I don't want to be like him. That's the thing. I want to be a cop and… do it better than he did. I want to keep other people safe and I want to… still be a good person. To people around me. You know?"

"Well, that seems like an awesome goal to set for yourself," Angelina said, still sounding completely dumbstruck. "Which makes it even weirder that you'd be _sorry." _

"I…" Hoffman said, scratching the back of his neck nervously. "I don't want you to think… you'll always come first, I don't want you to forget that. You always will and I'm just scared that…"

"Mark," Angelina cut him off, throwing the cigarette butt out the window and turning around, putting her hands on his knees. "Stop that. You have something you want to do, I'll support you until I vomit fucking rainbows with it. And it'll take a lot more than some stupid police academy to turn you into dad."

Hoffman dared looking up at her. Smiling bleakly.

"So you don't hate me?"

"You're my brother! I love you! Now, let's just focus on turning you into an awesome cop."

Thinking back of it, that moment makes Hoffman want to bash his own face in. He'd spent his whole life like that, caring only about what she thought of him even though her love had always been completely unconditional. The important thing was to be amazing to her, in everything he did. In school, as a brother, as a son to their parents, as a cop. Everything he did until that fateful day, he did to be her hero.

And then she died, and he had to think of other way to be the hero.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Lawrence wakes up from strange sleep by Hoffman barging into the room. It's been okay tonight, "strange sleep" is his name for the times there aren't any distinct nightmares, just voices, darkness, the sensation of being absolutely terrified even though there's no apparent reason to be. It's better than most nights.

Which makes it even more annoying that Hoffman has to wake him up.

"You're such a fuckin' whiny _bitch, _you know that?"

Lawrence slowly opens his eyes. It takes him some time to discern Hoffman on the chair by his bed. It's definitely him, but it doesn't look like him. His usually neat hair is ruffled, his shirt with two big pit stains. Lawrence rolls over to his side, it stings in his ankle.

"What?"

"You're a _fuck… fuckin' whiny bitch," _Hoffman repeats, leaning forward a little. There's something odd about his movements. "Just lyin' there all day all… just thinkin' 'bout your fucking _family…" _

His words fade out to an annoyed grumble, and Lawrence tries to make his face out in the darkness.

"Are you drunk?"

"_Yes!" _Hoffman roars, it echoes against the tight, dirty walls. "Is that a fucking problem?"

"Mark…" Lawrence sits up on the bed, "you don't have to worry about me and my family. I told you I wasn't going to think about them anymore."

Hoffman somehow manages to fix his eyes on him.

"What?"

"I told you."

Lawrence looks down at his hands, fidgeting on the covers. Nervous, but nervous in the way he always is when he's talking to Hoffman. Not like it's a big deal. Like it's just another pain on top of everything he's feeling, and he's gone numb.

"I won't think about them. I don't need them anymore. I'm here now. I'm just going to work, that's all."

Hoffman squints at him. It takes him a while to realize that his upper body has sort of fallen forward since he's too drunk to coordinate, and he's sitting leaned over his knees.

"That's… that's _bullshit," _he eventually concludes and heaves himself back into an upright position. "You keep… I _hear _you, you know. I _hear _you talking to… to Adam, and you're… you have nightmares and shit…"

"No," Lawrence cuts him off. "I promise you, I don't. It doesn't hurt anymore, I don't let it. It's too important what we do here. Right?"

Hoffman keeps staring at him. And all Lawrence can think that it's impressive that he can still be this fast when he's drunk, because before he's even registered the movement, Hoffman has gotten to his feet, raised his hand and struck his fist flush into his face. Lawrence's head is knocked back against the headboard, he groans in pain and cups his nose with his hands.

The blood is trickling down at first before turning into a full-blown gush. Lawrence can't lick it from his lips, since the taste is only going to bring him right back there _(to that place that's not supposed to hurt anymore), _so he settles for bringing the edge of the blanket up to his face. Hoffman is hovering over him, face blank as ever, the only thing giving him away is the tightening of his jaw, knotted under his skin.

Lawrence looks up at him, questioning. Hoffman's hurt him before, only not this bad. And he'd never let him bleed without tending to the wounds, John would notice. It could just the alcohol clouding his judgment, but somehow, Lawrence knows that's not the case. Hoffman's swaying back and forth in front of him, only barely staying on his feet, but there was no hesitation in his punch, no trace of remorse on his face. He knows what he did, and he's glad he did it.

They keep staring at each other for a while. Then Hoffman turns around, faltering a little, and walks over to his own bed. He collapses on top of the covers before Lawrence has managed to ask him what the hell just happened.

xxxxxxxxxxx

"Would you mind explaining to me what the _fuck _you were thinking?" Amanda spits out in an angry whisper as she closes the door behind them after they exit Gordon's room.

They've spent the past hour trying to patch his nose up, with the help of Gordon himself, trying to guide them through it when he wasn't screaming. Hoffman has zero knowledge in anatomy, and Amanda did little more than standing there hissing death threats over Gordon's shoulder and trying to pin him down while Hoffman rearranged his bones. It's going to look okay now, he's pretty sure of that. But not so well that John won't notice the huge patch of bandage they've taped straight across Gordon's nose to keep everything in place until it's healed.

Hoffman's frustrated with himself, but he's not regretting a damn thing. He punched Gordon because he was pissed off, and that hasn't passed. Just seeing that fucker's face, even when it was covered in blood and he was screaming in pain, set him off, made him angry in a way he didn't get anymore. It sets something deep inside him spinning, something he's tried his best to forget.

_It doesn't hurt anymore. I don't let it. It's too important, what we're doing here. _Hoffman hears the words in his head and feels his fists clench up again.

"He had it coming," he settles for saying. Amanda rolls her eyes.

"Look," she says. "I know you're not exactly sunshine and lollipops with people we bring in, and as long as John doesn't notice, you don't have to be. I don't care. But _breaking his fucking nose? _I think John's going to notice that, Hoffman. And when he does, shit's going down, and probably on me, too."

"The fuck would I care about what happens to you?" Hoffman mumbles, barely paying attention to her. "He was being an asshole. You would've done the same thing. He… he's a danger to us. To all of us. Including John."

Amanda, who's been fidgeting nervously, suddenly stills, her eyes on him wide.

"What?"

Hoffman smirks and move a little closer to her. Now that he's gotten the idea, this is going to be easier than he thought. There's a simple solution to all of this, and he didn't see it before because he wanted to follow John's rules, but now that he can rationalize this to himself, it's all so clear.

Sometimes when he fights with Amanda, and actually hears how 'daddy-loves-me-the-most' like it sounds, he's disgusted with himself. But there's one point they always agree on, and that is that they will, at no matter what cost, do what's best for John. And there are easy ways to convince Amanda what that would be.

"You've seen him, Amanda," he murmurs as she cranes her head back to look at him. "He's a mess. He's a delusional, whiny mess, and he has hallucinations. He's going to turn on us, he doesn't have what it takes. You know that."

Amanda tries to seem unfazed by his closeness, but he notices her swallowing nervously as his fingertips graze her hand.

"What do you mean?" she says throatily, lifting one hand to place on his chest. "He's… when he's operating, he's fine."

"Yeah, but how long do you think that's going to last?" Hoffman goes on, placing the hand that isn't now interlaced with hers on her cheek. "He's going to break. You know it, and I know it. Eventually he'll even forget about his family, and then there's nothing stopping him from calling the police."

Amanda doesn't answer this. She stares intently at the hand she holds still on his chest, like she's figured out what he means but doesn't want to agree without putting up a fight, but that's the exact reason why Hoffman talks to her like this, pressed up against her, his lips to her ear.

Despite all the times he's rejected her, and despite the fact that they're both full-blown sociopathic sadists, there will always be some small part of her that hopes that it can work out between them. And Amanda will never be able to reject approval from a man.

"I know…" Hoffman continues, barely more than a whisper now, "that John's told us not to kill him. But don't you think there are ways we could make it seem… incidental? Or at least not our fault?"

Amanda looks up at him. Hoffman makes sure to pull back a few inches. He's a good actor, but he really doesn't want to be closer to her than he has to.

"I guess," she says softly. "What are your plans?"

Hoffman smirks into her hair.

"I'm thinking… we can make it look sloppy. Pick a fight with him, drag him out of bed and trash the room. Break the medicine cabinet and make him cut his throat with the glass. It'll be easy. We'll put a gun to his head or threaten his family. John'll think he cracked under the pressure, he'll never think it was us."

Amanda moves her hand down his ribs. She has that look on her face, the one she gets sometimes with John. That smarmy, I'll-do-anything-for-you, that look.

"Why can't you do it alone, Mark?" she says.

She only calls him that when he has her reeled in. Hoffman keeps smiling.

"Someone's going to have to guard the door. And Gordon. I know he's a cripple, but he can get really feisty when he has a meltdown."

Amanda looks up at the ceiling. He's not sure if she's actually thinking or just pretending to. Then she lets out a small sigh, shaking her head.

"Fine."

Hoffman smiles, that lovely feeling of concentrated malice swelling in his chest. He tilts Amanda's chin up and places a chaste kiss on her lips, but then he walks away. He's done fucking her, and nothing, not even the satisfaction of knowing that Gordon will soon be out of his hair, is going to change that.

Even though he still doesn't get why he's suddenly gone from being annoyed with him to wanting him dead. But Hoffman likes to believe that it's a bit too late for him to start considering the weirdness of his feelings.


	11. Torn

A/N: Now I too forever again. XD But either way, I hope you have patience left with me. If so, you're a trooper. Now, proceed.

**10. Torn**

The plan is thought out carefully. There's no possible way it can fail. At least that's what Amanda tries to convince herself. She has Hoffman by her side, the needle ready in her pocket and almost burning with importance, and even if something were to go wrong, he's a delirious, chubby old doctor who's weakened with fear and a constant exposure to morphine. And more importantly, he _wants _to die. He won't put up a fight, he might even love her for it. What threat is he? Really?

They've talked it over, she knows what she's going to do. Drag Gordon out of bed, beat him up a little, make sure she, too gets some visible injuries. Then make sure that he dies by his own hand, either force him to cut his own throat, or just knock him out and inject him. The needle in her pocket is a too-large-dose of morphine, just in case. Either way, John will think he did it to himself. He won't be mad. It's going to be fine.

But Amanda's still nervous. Gordon scares her. He's not intimidating like Hoffman, but he's stark raving mad, in that washed down, fragile way. He's got nothing to lose and he _knows _it. And she knows better than anyone what that knowledge can drive you to do.

She's walking down the hallway to Gordon's room. Hoffman a few steps behind her. She would've liked some comfort, she has a sudden urge to grab his hand, but it's no use. In whatever sick, twisted way Hoffman cares about her, that's not it.

Outside his door, they stop. Amanda turns to him. Knows that the fear is discernable on her face, hates herself for it. Hoffman takes a step towards her.

"Okay, you know the plan," he says, voice even huskier than usual. "Make it as messy as possible. I'll be down there," he says, pointing to the end of the hallway, "and if John comes, I'll page you, and make sure he's stalled until you manage to slip out."

Amanda nods curtly.

"Right."

"Good."

Hoffman nods also.

"Go make me proud," he then adds, with a bit of an undertone that she can't quite interpret. But Amanda's sure he doesn't mean it in the way she would like him to. She opens the door.

Gordon is asleep. Amanda steps up to his bedside, watches, even though she shouldn't. After the months he's been here with them, she's still sometimes blown away with what they've turned him into. She remembers the pictures they took of him before all this. In control, hair neatly combed. He even had a bit of color on his face, which is hard to imagine, the way he looks now.

_He wants to die. Just do it. Just do it. _

Amanda's not sure how to start. In lack of anything better, she picks up the box of disinfectant tissues from the nightstand, stainless steel, and knocks him over the head with it.

Gordon wakes up with a groan, turns to her. Amanda gets even more scared when she sees that he doesn't look surprised, and even worse, not the least bit scared.

He just looks pissed off. She hits him with the box again, the strange noise of steel against flesh, and uses the momentary confusion to grab his leg, making sure it's the one without a foot, and pull him down from the bed.

She does all this by autopilot. The entire of Hoffman's plan has slipped her mind, and she just hits, hits, hits, no intention or purpose, no thought at all of the fact that John probably won't believe that Gordon bashed his own face in before he killed himself. The plan is foiled to begin with, because Gordon isn't disposable. He's a furious, living thing who wants to stay alive.

Amanda doesn't know how to handle that. She suddenly realizes she's whimpering as she hits him, kneeling next to him, afraid to straddle him even though that'd give her a better angle. Doesn't need the closeness to know that Gordon will beat her.

She had the advantage of surprise, so she actually has managed to get a few hits on him. But suddenly, Gordon's grabbed her wrist, she's too drained and terrified to fight him, even though her mind says _no no no no no, _her body's given up. Just the look in his eyes is enough to drain her.

Gordon will do anything to stay alive. Even if he lives for all the wrong reasons.

He pulls her down to him, puts his arm around her neck. She's been in this position with men so many times, more than willing to let them empower her, and now is no different. Even though she struggles when she feels his forearm putting pressure on her windpipe, it's no use. Amanda won't pretend she doesn't know who's won.

A few feeble kicks against his shin, world blackening along the edges. She stops kicking long before it's all slipped away.

xxxxxxxxxxx

"What happened?"

Hoffman immediately stands up and grabs John by his forearms. John's too weak to put up a proper fight, but the look on his face makes it all the more difficult to fight him down.

That pure, honest _pain. _On the face of the last person in the world that Hoffman cares about. He feels a sting of remorse, right at the spot where he's supposed to be empty by now. When he gently pushes John into his wheelchair, he gets a sudden flashback to the night Angelina died, and wishes he could die on the spot.

"Don't look. Come on."

He starts wheeling John out the room, but John turns around.

"Take me back there."

"John…"

"Mark. Please."

Hoffman usually can't argue with him, but John's voice doesn't have any authority to it. He's weak, Hoffman's Zen master is suddenly just an old man with cancer. Halfway down the hall, he stops trying to turn around to the room where Amanda's laying, and covers his eyes with his hand.

He's grieving. He's not missing a pawn, or even a student. He misses Amanda. He misses _her. _

Hoffman grits his teeth. As if that will keep that realization down.

He brings John to the room with his gadgets and blueprints and locks the door behind him. Not that Gordon poses a threat to them. Perhaps he wants to keep John in here with him.

John just sits there for a bit. Hoffman stands there, hands folded. Eventually, John drops his hand and looks at him.

"How did it happen?"

"She was going to check up on him. He must've jumped her. Caught her by surprise."

John doesn't seem to have heard him. Hoffman doesn't repeat himself, knows he heard.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," John says, after a too-long break. "He's supposed to be on our side now. How did it happen?"

_Haven't you been doing your job? _The question lies unsaid. Hoffman grits his teeth again.

"Maybe she went after him first," he says, managing to keep almost any trace of annoyance out of his tone. "She could've. I mean, we know she had a temper."

"She obeyed me," John says.

"When it suited her," Hoffman bites back, makes absolutely no attempt to sound calm. "She wasn't loyal. I'm sorry to say it at a time like this, but she never was."

John gives him that look again, that evaluating one that he's been giving him way too often lately. He's not grieving anymore, ten minutes is enough for him to think of ways to fix the damage, and that's all they are to him. Hoffman realizes it now. Fixings.

No matter how much he cares about them, practicality comes first. His cause, the great plan of John Kramer, comes before them. They're means to an end. That's it.

"You were always eager to get rid of her," John asks softly. "I know better than anyone the demons Amanda were fighting with tooth and nail, but she was not less stable than doctor Gordon. Yet you've always argued in his favor, why is that?"

Hoffman stares back. The evaluating look doesn't seem so bad anymore. His sudden realization is like a cold blanket over his soul now, and Hoffman just meets his gaze, calmly, coldly, _yeah, glare the fuck away, old man, I'm done trying to impress you. _

It's John that looks away at last. He lowers his gaze and wheels away to his desk to pick up the files on their new test subject.

"Doctor Gordon will have one final chance to prove his loyalty," he says, his back to Hoffman. "Adam's corpse is still in the bathroom, isn't it?"

Hoffman swallows.

"Yes."

"Good." John gives him a half-glance over his shoulder. "Make the doctor dispose of Adam's body. You drive him to the site, he picks up the remains of the last friend he ever had, and then you take him to the river where he can dump it in a trash bag. As soon as he's strong enough to drive."

It's almost frightening, how coldly he says it. Hoffman exhales through his nose. He shouldn't be surprised. There's no way he'd be able to keep any of this up.

"I'll go tell him."

He walks out the room.


	12. Never Too Late

A/N: Yeah I'm a slow updater and yada yada, BUT I WROTE ANOTHER CHAPTER AND SHIT ACTUALLY GOES DOWN HERE SO PLEASE BEAR WITH ME HAVE A COOKIE AND NEVER FORGET HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU

**11. Never Too Late**

Lawrence doesn't think about Adam anymore, that part is true. He thinks about his family sometimes, more often than he'd like to, but not Adam. Never Adam.

He had one last dream of him the night after he'd killed Amanda. It wasn't really a nightmare. Adam just stood there.

Lawrence thought they would die together. He wished they'd died together.

xxxxxxxxxxx

John's office is more like two separate rooms. All the gadgets and equipment in one room, with blueprints on the walls. The other one consists of John's bed, a chair, a nightstand, and the IV they've recently stolen from a hospital.

John can't digest real food anymore.

He used to keep Hoffman and Amanda in here when he needed time to think, or when someone needed to keep an eye on his breathing during the night, or when they were bickering too much to be of use to him.

As Hoffman sits next to John's bed, he doesn't think back of these times with sentimentality. He watches John, asleep in front of him, and he probably should feel something, since emotions have been rising in a rate he can't control lately. But no. It's all going to end soon.

He states it to himself coldly. It's ending and he's okay with it.

This wasn't what he hoped it would be, anyway.

_Angie… _

He wishes he had some whiskey with him, but that's about it.

_Angie, I've been lying to myself. You wouldn't have been proud of me over these couple of years, would you? _

Whiskey. Or her.

He's stopped hoping for that.

_I can still make it better, though. Can't I? Wouldn't you have been proud of what I'm about to do? I'd been your hero again, wouldn't I? _

_Wouldn't I? _

Hoffman stands up. He stands there looking at John for little more than a second, saying goodbye. If they see each other again, it's not going to be the same anymore.

Then he leaves.

xxxxxxxxxxx

It's been a couple of weeks since Amanda's death. Hoffman enters Gordon's room with a tray; some oatmeal, a cup of coffee. The days following what happened, Hoffman wasn't allowed to give him food, but he didn't keep that punishment up for as long as John had told him to. Partly to fuck with John, and partly because it was clear that Gordon wasn't sorry for what he'd done, and he never would be.

Hoffman kept watching him, waiting for him to at beg, to at least pretend, for basic human instincts to take over, but no. Gordon grew thinner, his face more sunken, but he didn't open his mouth in days, not to apologize, explain himself, or even mock them. Blank stare, like he barely knew what he'd done, like he didn't care.

Hoffman started feeding him again before long. It seemed like a waste of time to punish someone who barely seemed aware of being punished.

Gordon looks up when Hoffman closes the door behind him. Hoffman meets his gaze, holds it without really knowing why, before placing the tray in his lap.

"Eat up," he needlessly says. "We have some errands to run today."

Gordon picks up the plastic spoon and starts scooping up the oatmeal. He doesn't comment on how it's cold, or even acknowledge that Hoffman said something. The days when Hoffman found it useful to strike him across the face for that, though, are long gone.

"Adam's body's still in the bathroom," Hoffman goes on as Gordon takes a sip of his coffee. "We're going to pick it up and dump it in the river."

Gordon nods.

"Okay."

Hoffman glares at him.

"No one's going to look for him," he says, pushing. "The police don't care about people like him. It's going to be like he never existed ."

Gordon finally meets his gaze. He looks like absolutely nothing.

"Fine."

That's it. Hoffman grits his teeth, but manage to keep his fury contained.

He's not sure how Gordon is going to react once he sees Adam. He's not sure what he wants to happen, or why it's important to him in the first place.

xxxxxxxxxxx

About a week or so after Lawrence had killed Amanda, John had told him to sow a man's eyes shut. Lawrence did so, more or less on autopilot, even though he'd never done anything like it before. When it was done, he turned to John.

"What would you do if I cut his throat right now?" he asked.

His eyes were wide, either in anticipation for John's answer, or in pure wonder at the idea. John looked up at him. Rather than with the dull hatred with which he'd observed Lawrence since he'd killed Amanda, he met his eyes with what almost looked like sadness.

"I'd be disappointed," he finally answered.

Lawrence gave a weak smile. John isn't planning on letting him handle any further operations, but he won't have a chance to make that decision.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Gordon hobbles after Hoffman through the maze of hallways. They reach the garage without saying a word to each other, and Hoffman doesn't help Gordon into the front seat, even though he's visibly struggling with his cane. He's annoyed with Gordon, and again, he has no idea why.

Hopefully, he won't have to think about it long. They pull out onto the main street. The drive to the bathroom isn't very long, maybe twenty minutes, and Hoffman feels his grip on the steering wheel tighten the closer they get.

He also notices that he's fastened his seatbelt, and Gordon hasn't. He probably shouldn't be surprised.

"How do you feel about this?" he asks after a few miles.

Gordon shrugs. His face shows nothing to indicate that he feels anything deeper than that.

"We stalked you for months before we got you," Hoffman goes on, prodding again. "We saw you go to work and home, only sidetracking to pick your daughter up from school and fuck your interns. Never to see anyone important."

Gordon stares out the window. Hoffman glances at him.

"He was the only friend you've had in years. The only one that mattered. And no one else could understand what you've gone through."

Gordon is quiet for so long that Hoffman is sure that they're going to spend the rest of the drive like that, before he speaks up, voice raspy from lack of usage.

"I used to talk to him. He used to visit me." Pause. "He hasn't come to me in a while. It's been fine. He… he distracted me. From… from work."

Dead hands in his lap. Hoffman feels his stomach sink.

"I used to be afraid," Gordon concludes, barely more than a mumble. "I'm not anymore. It's better. It's better."

Hoffman wishes he hadn't taken Gordon here. However this ends, it's not going to be pretty. But it's too late now; they're pulling up on the cracked asphalt outside the sewage building where they've been heading.

Hoffman checks in his pocket for the keys John's given him, and then gets out. Gordon follows him to his best ability, up to the rusty metal back door. Hoffman opens it by a mere turn of the handle. No door in this facility has been locked in years, except for the one Adam is trapped behind.

The cold stench is like a punch in the face. Hoffman frowns and puts the back of his hand over his nose. But it only throws him off by a little; he starts walking, without checking to see if Gordon follows.

The click of his cane echoes through the dirty hallway. Hoffman is not as sure where the bathroom is located as he'd like to be, but after a few minutes of retracing his steps, he encounters a familiar pool of blood.

He halts and looks around. A steaming pipe. A pool of blood. And more importantly, a trace of the blood across the floor in front of them, leading up to where they're standing.

Hoffman keeps walking, until he notices the absence of a solid _click _behind him. He turns around.

Gordon has stopped, staring down at the blotch of his own blood, dried to flakes. Like it didn't happen, like evidence fading.

"Come on," Hoffman says.

Gordon looks at him. His face is gray, the cane trembling under his hand.

He looks so completely worn down with misery that Hoffman doesn't know what to say, so he just stands there for a bit, until Lawrence starts walking, slower than before, leaving the blood behind them.

It can't be long until they're there now. Hoffman tells himself that he's slowing down his steps so he won't lose track of Gordon, and no other reason.

_He won't make it. He'll snap. _

Hoffman turns another corner and the sight of the dirt-yellow door is like a cold flash, like he'd somehow hoped they wouldn't find it.

But here it is. This is it.

Okay. Here goes. Hoffman turns around when he hears Gordon stop behind him, raising a hand uncertainly.

"Gordon," he says. "Try to… what we're going to see in there might be hard for you to handle. Try to take it easy."

Gordon just stares. Hoffman nods, even though there's been no sign that his words were registered, and turns around, takes the key out of his pocket.

_Are you proud of me, Angie? _

That's his last thought before he opens the door.

If Lawrence had been paying attention, he might've noticed the streak of light under the door to the bathroom and been prepared. But he's lived behind a haze of morphine and self-hatred since the last time he was here, so the fluorescent glow causes him to squeeze his eyes shut. He hears the voice before he sees its bearer.

"Hey."

And it's not Hoffman's voice.

It's not Hoffman that now sees him.

"Lawrence?"

Said softly, like a prayer. Like anything spoken to someone you were sure wasn't real.

Lawrence opens his eyes. A second of adjustment. Blurry lines of dirty tiles, the toilet, _his rotting foot, _stomach churning. And a familiar shape in the other end of the room.

Adam.

No.

Adam.

Eyes hollowed, growing stubble, fingertips bloody, _(tried to claw his way out) _shirt hanging even looser than before. _Alive_.

It's like Diana mistaking a stranger's hand for his and looking scared before finding his shirt sleeve and hanging onto it even tighter than usual, like getting the milk perfect when he heated it and earning a smile from mom, like being on a flight home after a long trip and seeing the landing lights.

Lawrence feels his cane slipping out of his grasp. He falls against the door frame, without taking his eyes off Adam once.

_Adam. _

If Lawrence still had the ability to feel, he might've let that thought in.

It's like being safe again.


	13. Too Late

A/N: So, that last chapter ended on a cliffhanger. I'd be lying if I said this one was any better.

**12: Too Late**

Can monsters love?

When Hoffman saw Lawrence, he was certain that the answer was no. Lawrence doesn't love anymore, and that's when he turned into a monster. His humanity has been fading bit by bit since they brought him there, started wearing him down. He stopped asking about his family, about Adam, and since then, he has died. He dies every night when he goes asleep, just with the bad luck of waking up again the next morning.

Hoffman went there years ago. He's spent years in his own bathroom. Unlike Lawrence, he never got the chance to get out of there.

John picked him out of the slum after he'd gone so far down there that the dive bars barely wanted him anymore. By then, blood was already on his hands, he couldn't go back.

Killing was the new drinking. The only thing that cleaned his eyes from the image of Angelina. The blood of others washed his memory clean of hers.

Then Lawrence came his way. A man who was here, in their joined, personal hell, because he wouldn't give up on the ones he loved.

He was the first of the ones they'd tested who never gave up. No one else had done it before him.

That could be worn down. Hoffman had seen it before. So many gave up in the test already, gave up on life, which was supposed to be the most precious thing to them. But not Lawrence. He hung on, withstood everything they put him through, kept alive for his family.

And for Adam.

Hoffman can't say when it started for him. Amanda had told him that she'd gone to kill Adam, and he hadn't really cared. He had gone to dispose of the body, and when he leaned down to wrap up Adam, seemingly lifeless, in the plastic bag he brought, he barely managed to unlock the shackle his foot was still in until Adam started thrashing. Weakly, but very clearly alive.

Amanda. Always so sloppy.

He can't say for sure why he didn't kill Adam on the spot that day. Maybe because of the very first thing out of his mouth, before he even opened his eyes.

"Lawrence…"

Hoffman had told himself he didn't feel like killing that day.

The next day was the first time he heard Lawrence talk to Adam when he was supposed to be sleeping.

That's when he went back to the bathroom, not sure what his intentions were. Adam woke up right away this time, cringed when Hoffman turned on the lights. His eyes were red-shot, huddled slightly in his corner when he saw Hoffman.

"Are you real?" His voice was hoarse.

Hoffman shrugged slightly.

"Doesn't matter."

Adam snorted. His hands were shaking as he rubbed his face.

"If you are, just… stop. Please. Just kill me."

The plea. The powerlessness. It usually put Hoffman right on the edge of insanity, the thirst for blood, the unreality of the murder act. Now, he felt nothing.

"Gordon is alive," he said.

He wasn't sure why he'd said it until he saw Adam's face. A spark in his eyes. His body was on the brink of death, but at that moment, he looked more alive than Hoffman felt.

"Lawrence?" Adam choked out, scuffled forward on the floor. "He's okay? He… oh, god, he's alive?"

"I wouldn't call it okay," Hoffman bit back, and Adam quickly huddled back. "We're using him as a power tool. But yes, he's alive. Both him and his family, and we're planning on keeping him that way."

Adam covered his mouth with his hand. Hoffman left when he started blinking away tears. The next time he came, he brought food.

He wasn't sure why he did it, but he made sure Adam was alive. He unlocked the shackle and let Adam walk free when he was there. He made sure he had food and clean water, he let him use the shower in the next room. He brought him books and tried his best to describe the outside world when he was there. He kept the lights on.

He wasn't sure why. But he knew for sure that he couldn't let John or Amanda know about this, because Hoffman didn't keep him alive for the purpose of the game. Whatever it was, it wasn't something John would approve of.

Adam hated him, of course. He wasn't the brightest star, but he got that Hoffman was one of the people that had put him here. He'd tried to knock Hoffman out so many times after his shackle had been unlocked, used pipe remains, pebbles, but he was weak. Hoffman overpowered him in minutes, but never punished him for it. He didn't blame Adam, and if he ever would manage to escape, Hoffman knew he would try to reach Gordon, and Hoffman wouldn't deny him that.

Maybe Adam didn't deserve to live. But dying without ever again seeing the one person that cared about him, he definitely didn't deserve. No one did.

Hoffman didn't have a plan for Adam, but he knew that it the plan he'd eventually have wouldn't involve Gordon stopping caring. But that's what happened.

He saw it. Bit by bit, Gordon was breaking down, which wouldn't usually be a bad thing, but the one thing that kept him going wasn't love, it was obsession. And it was over work, of all things. Of being useful to John. That was all that mattered.

Gordon was slowly turning into what Hoffman was.

Hoffman hated him for it. That's what scared him.

He usually wouldn't deny anyone misery. The more people suffered, the better.

But there he was, in Gordon's room, _not _hearing him talking to Adam at night. Not asking about his family. Just about what John wanted him to do, if there were any surgeries coming up, work, _please, I need to work. _

And he hated Gordon for it. For falling into this pit.

Now, Hoffman's standing in the bathroom, where this entire shitstorm began. Gordon is leaning heavily against the doorframe, looking paler than when they first found him, bleeding, in the hallways outside. Adam on the other end of the room, standing up, looking like a kid who's finally found the parent he lost at the mall.

Hoffman will never be able to go back to John. He's given up everything he believes in, the fucked up, shredded resemblance of a life he managed to scrape together after Angelina died. For this.

He won't know until later if it was worth it. It's all up to Gordon now.

For the longest time, Gordon and Adam just stare at each other. Gordon looks like the world has fallen from his foot, his mouth is a gaping hole. Of course this is harder on him. Adam at least knew that the other was alive, he doesn't have to deal with the utter shock of the realization. Neither with the fact that it's currently ripping apart the twisted loyalty he's devoted himself to, so completely.

Well, that's not Hoffman's problem. He steps up to Gordon, speaks softly, for some reason hoping that Adam won't hear him.

"I brought you here so you could make a choice," he says. "Adam is here, he's alive. So is your family. There is a car outside. If you ask me for the keys, I will give them to you. You can leave. Run away with them. You can have literally everything you kept alive for, all you have to do is ask."

Hoffman takes a breath. Gordon shows no sign of having heard him.

"John thinks you're here to dispose of Adam's body. If you want to go back to him, you have to kill Adam, and we'll take him away, dump him in the river, like we planned. Then you can go back to John, to that shit life you've been leading."

He tries to make it sound like no big deal. Gordon has to make the choice himself.

"If you want to go, I'll make no attempt to bring you back," Hoffman goes on. "I'll make sure John never finds out what really happened. You can start over. It's up to you. Just say the word."

He thinks he sees Gordon's gaze flicker, but maybe he's imagining it. Adam is frozen in place, deer in headlights, seconds before you kill it.

"Unlock his chain," Gordon finally says and slowly leans down to pick up his cane.

The way his voice bounces off the tiles. It sounds like they're in a casket.

Hoffman picks his keys out of his pocket, walks up to Adam and kneels down next to him. He frees Adam's ankle and sees that he's chafed it raw, and yet Adam barely seems to notice that the shackle is gone. He doesn't take his eyes off of Gordon for one second.

Gordon's face reveals nothing. Years trying to predict how people will react in a given situation, and Hoffman can't for his life figure out what he's going to do.

"Do you have a gun, Hoffman?" Gordon finally asks.

Hoffman feels himself swallowing.

"Yeah."

"Give it to me."

Hoffman walks up to him, takes his gun from the holster and places it in Gordon's hand. Gordon looks down on it for a moment, Hoffman is sure he's seen him look like that right before he's about to perform surgery.

Then Gordon lifts the gun. Points it right at Adam, who looks like he's disappearing, before their eyes.

"You failed your test," Gordon says.

He sounds like absolutely nothing. Hell, if Hoffman closed his eyes right now it could be John he was listening to.


End file.
